A lone knife-wielding attacker unleashed horror on the streets of Taipei, detonating smoke bombs and stabbing his way through the capital’s evening rush hour, killing at least three people and injuring nine in one of the island’s worst acts of public violence in a decade.
The 27-year-old suspect, identified by officials as Chang Wen, launched his rampage around 5:20 PM local time at Taipei’s main railway station, a bustling transport hub connected to an underground shopping street. Wearing a baseball cap and black clothing, he first set off smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails, creating a cloak of chaos before emerging with a large knife to attack bystanders.
How It Happened
In a sequence captured on harrowing social media videos, the attacker then fled through the subterranean shopping center to the nearby Zhongshan Station—an 800-meter walk through crowded corridors—stabbing more people along the way. After a brief detour to a nearby hotel to pick up another weapon, he returned to the street outside Zhongshan Station to deploy further smoke bombs and continue his assault, even entering a bookstore and a department store.
One man reportedly tried to intervene and stop the attacker but was struck with a blunt object and later died in the hospital, becoming one of the three fatalities. Police finally cornered the suspect in the department store, where he fell from a multi-storey building. He died shortly after in the hospital. His motive remains unknown.
The attack has sent shockwaves through Taiwan, which boasts remarkably low rates of violent crime. The last comparable incident was in 2014, when a man killed four people on a Taipei subway train; that perpetrator was executed two years later.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese Premier Cho Jung-tai has immediately ordered increased security at all metro stations, railway hubs, and airports. “We will investigate [the suspect’s] background and associated relationships to understand his motives and determine if there are other connected factors.”
Taiwan’s President William Lai also promised a swift, thorough investigation.
