Citizens Blocked Attacker Heading Toward Kids' Cafe, Preventing Major Disaster

It has belatedly been revealed that during a stabbing rampage at a mixed-use commercial building in Incheon yesterday (October 13), citizens set up barricades to prevent the suspect from approaching a floor housing a kids' cafe.

With a knife-wielding man able to approach areas where young children were present, citizens reportedly stepped in directly to prevent a larger catastrophe.

Yesterday afternoon, at a commercial building in Guwol-dong, Namdong-gu, Incheon, a man in his 50s, surnamed A, swung a weapon while moving across multiple floors of the building, injuring nine people.

However, a large kids' cafe was also located in this building.

At the time, A reportedly committed the crimes while moving between the women's restrooms and stores on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building.

During this process, citizens stacked chairs and other items to set up a barricade at the access point leading to the floor where the kids' cafe was located.

They blocked the path to prevent A from accessing that floor.

In the end, A reportedly failed to break into the floor with the kids' cafe and moved to another floor.

Bae Sung-hoon, a special professor of police criminology at Woosuk University, stated during a broadcast on YTN that "if he had broken in there, unimaginable damage could have occurred," evaluating that the citizens' response contributed to reducing casualties.

The response from citizens and building employees did not stop there.

Even during the standoff in the restroom, employees reportedly reported the incident to the police, and citizens joined forces to help subdue A using chairs.

Professor Bae said, "Of course the police made the arrest, but the citizens and employees acted with courage," adding that without their actions, the damage could have been even greater.

There was also an analysis that because A committed the crimes while moving between multiple floors, patrons on other floors would have had difficulty recognizing the danger in advance.

Among the nine people injured in this incident, a woman in her 20s was transported to the hospital in a state of cardiac arrest.

She emerged from cardiac arrest after receiving emergency surgery, but is reportedly still unconscious.

The police are investigating the exact circumstances and motive of the crime.

(Reported by Kim Minjeong | Video by Lee Da-in | Graphics by Yang Hae-min | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.