'I did not know society is so unsafe': mother of slain child

Taipei, March 28 (CNA) Struggling to hold back her tears, the heartbroken mother of a child slain in a random attack in Taipei on Monday said she never imagined society was so unsafe and urged the government to take action so that people like the suspect will no longer exist.

Speaking to the media, the mother of the 4-year-old girl who was decapitated by a 33-year-old man said her daughter was riding a strider bike about a meter away from her when the bike got stuck and could not make its way onto the sidewalk.

When the suspect approached her daughter, she thought he was going to help her pick up her bike, but instead he began attacking her, the mother said.

"I saw the suspect slashing my daughter with a cleaver. I immediately grabbed him but I could not pull him away," she said, adding that she screamed for help and passersby and nearby residents rushed to subdue the suspect.

The frightened mother said that when she came to herself, "my daughter was not at her original location, and she was not on her bike. She was scattered on the roadside."

The killing occurred at Section 1 of Huanshan Road in Neihu District in northern Taipei on Monday morning.

The child, surnamed Liu, and her mother were on their way to Xihu metro station in Neihu District to meet the girl's grandfather and two of her siblings for lunch, when the suspect grabbed the child from behind and decapitated her with a cleaver.

"Little light bulb (girl's nickname) told me that she missed her brother and sister, so she wanted to pick them up," the tearful mother said. "But I am very sad. I will never see her again, and she will never see her brother and sister again."

"I did not know society is so unsafe. I really hope that the government will do something so that mothers will be at ease taking care of their children, or be at ease working," she said.

Suspects in these kinds of random killings lose their minds temporarily, and no law can resolve this, the mother said, urging the government to address the problem at its roots.

"I hope that we can address family and education issues so that people like this will disappear from our society," the mother said. "I hope our children and grandchildren will never see someone like this again."

(Girl's mother speaks to the media)

An initial investigation found that the suspect waited near Xihu Station after allegedly purchasing the cleaver at a supermarket earlier Monday.

He was arrested after the incident, and police were still trying to determine the man's motive for attacking the girl as of Monday evening.

Chaos broke out at the Xihu police station Monday afternoon, when the suspect, escorted by police, walked out of the station to board a vehicle to the Neihu Precinct station for further interrogation.

A large crowd of media swarmed around the man, who was wearing a grey shirt and helmet and had blood stains on his face, and dozens of angry people charged at him, hoping to take justice into their own hands.

They ended up cursing him or yelling "kill him!" and the chaos eventually forced police to bring him back to the station.

(chaos outside police station)

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who was attending a pilot's funeral, told reporters that he was shocked and saddened to hear about the killing and has asked the Cabinet to launch a full investigation into the incident so that justice can be served.

(By Christie Chen, Yiu Kai-hsiang, Liu Chien-pan, and Hsieh Chia-chen)ENDITEM/ls

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