A man with at least one knife and smoke grenades attacked crowds indiscriminately in Taiwan's capital on Friday evening, killing at least three people and injuring 11 others, according to the national news agency and the city government. The suspect later fell to his death from a department store building.
Police said that the suspect was declared dead at a hospital after jumping from the building's sixth floor, the Central News Agency reported.
The suspect, identified as a 27-year-old man named Chang Wen, threw smoke grenades near an underground exit of the Taipei Main metro station, close to the city's main train station, and randomly attacked people with a “sharp object,” sending pedestrians running, according to media reports.
He then headed north to a popular shopping district, where he threw smoke grenades and stabbed multiple people on the first and fourth floors of the Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store, primarily in the neck, the news agency said, citing police.
Police later revealed that the suspect, between the two scenes, took an underground path to a hotel, where he fetched some “lethal weapon” — or some kind of edged weapon — before showing up at a road outside the Zhongshan metro station, near the department store, according to the news agency.
Police said they were yet to find any accomplice and were investigating possible motives. Police said they recovered some “lethal weapons” in both the suspect's rental home in Taipei and the hotel room where he had stayed for three nights near Zhongshan.
Video footage aired on local television networks showed the suspect, who was wearing a gas mask and clad in black, dropping at least two smoke grenades at the Taipei Main metro station. He was later seen near Eslite and entering the department store while attacking passersby.
Local hospitals reported three deaths from the attacks. CNA reported on Saturday that 11 others were initially hospitalized. Six of them remained in hospitals, with two in the intensive care unit, it said.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an told local media that a 57-year-old man immediately tried to stop the suspect at the metro station's exit, but was fatally wounded. National Taiwan University Hospital told the news agency that the fatal wound was “a penetrating injury about five centimeters in length caused by a sharp object that reached from the right lung to the left atrium.”
Taipei Metro said that a staffer was hospitalized after he inhaled excessive smoke while responding to the attack.
Another man died after he was attacked near the department store, according to EBC News.
Chang failed to report for reserve military training in November 2024, and he was wanted for violating the law on mandatory military service, the news agency reported. He apparently didn't report a change in household registration, resulting in nondelivery of his reserve military service summons, the news agency reported, citing a district prosecutors' office.
Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te pledged a full public inquiry.
"I want to express condolences to those who tragically lost their lives in last night's horrific, violent attack, and to extend my sympathy to their families," Lai said at one of the hospitals.
He added that he has ordered a "full and thorough investigation" and will "give the public a full account of truth."
