Anne Anne Kindergarten stabbing

The Anne Anne Kindergarten stabbing was a mass murder that occurred in a kindergarten at Sham Shui Po, a district of Hong Kong, on 3 June 1982. After killing his mother and sister, and also wounding two other women, 28-year-old Lee Chi Hang (Chinese: 李志衡) entered the kindergarten and stabbed 34 children, four of them fatally, and also injured several other people, before he was arrested by police. Lee was found to be insane and was placed in a mental institution.[1]

Anne Anne Kindergarten stabbing
Location	Sham Shui Po, British Hong Kong
Date	3 June 1982 1:30 p.m.
Attack type	Mass murder
Weapons	Two knives Two chisels
Deaths	6
Injured	38 (including the perpetrator)
Perpetrator	Lee Chi Hang

Incident

At around 1:30 p.m., Lee stabbed his mother and sister in their flat, Room 1257, Block 4, Un Chau Street Estate.[2] They later died in hospital. Armed with two knives with 8-inch blades and two chisels, Lee ran downstairs, stabbing two sisters in the stairwell on the way, and fled to the Anne Anne Kindergarten (安安幼稚園), located on the ground floor of Block 4.[2] He entered the kindergarten, where 60 children between three and four years of age were having a singing lesson, and immediately began slashing and stabbing the children, leaving 34 of them wounded, six of them with their arms nearly severed,[3] and four with fatal injuries.

One of the teachers shouted "follow me" to the students, causing many to run outside.[4] She ran to the estate's neighbourhood policing unit on the ground floor of Block 5 for help. Two police officers arrived at the scene. Lee fled to the playground, where he stabbed constable Chan Kin Ming in the chest.[2] Ignoring the injured policeman's orders to drop his weapons, Lee continued stabbing at passers-by, and wounded two men, a woman, and a 14-year-old boy, before Chan stopped him with a shot to the left arm and stomach.[5][6][7][8]

A total of 38 injured children were taken to Caritas Medical Centre while the injured police constable was taken to Princess Margaret Hospital.[2][9] Chief Secretary Philip Haddon-Cave and other government officials, who had coincidentally been visiting the nearby Cheung Sha Wan fish market, arrived soon after to inspect the scene and offer condolences.[2]

Victims

Killed

• Leung Lai Kuen (梁麗娟), 48, Lee's mother
• Lee Shiu Kam (李少芹), 17, Lee's sister
• Fung Kin-kwok, 3
• Tai Kai-lam, 3
• Two other unnamed children

Wounded

• Two women (Kwong Sin Ngan, Kwong Sin Chun)
• 30 unnamed children, ages 3 and 4
• Constable Chan Kin Ming
• Two unnamed men
• Unnamed woman
• Unnamed boy, 14

Perpetrator

Lee, who was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia, was the son of Lee Wing Chiu and Leung Lai Kuen. According to his father, he was a silent boy who did poorly in school, showed strange behaviour, and spoke incoherently. In 1976, he was admitted to Castle Peak Hospital, a mental institution, for six months, after fighting with a neighbour.[3] He subsequently received treatment at the Yaumati Psychiatric Centre.[2] Lee frequently suffered from depression and threatened to kill his parents during an argument on New Year's Eve of 1979. In the time prior to the stabbing, he was unemployed and was said to have appeared emotionally unstable.[5]

Aftermath

After the stabbing, security measures at nursery schools were upgraded, and it was made compulsory for discharged patients of mental institutions to regularly attend psychiatric out-patient clinics.

Lee was charged with six counts of murder,[5] and in April 1983 he was sentenced to be detained in a mental hospital for an unspecified period.[10] As of January 1998 he was still being held at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre in Tuen Mun.[3]

In popular culture

The 1986 film The Lunatics by Derek Yee is based on the incident.

References

1. Man goes wild; 4 die, Wilmington Morning Star (June 4, 1982)
2. Cheung, Donald; Sinclair, Kevin (4 June 1982). "Stabbing horror at kindergarten". South China Morning Post. p. 1.
3. Care versus caution Archived June 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, The Standard (January 18, 1998)
4. "Teacher yelled 'follow me'". South China Morning Post. 8 June 1982. p. 14.
5. Running Amok, Asiaweek (June 18, 1982)
6. Man kills three, wounds 39 in knife-slashing rampage, Eugene Register-Guard (June 3, 1982)
7. Mad man's swathe of terror, New Straits Times (June 4, 1982)
8. Amok kills 4, hurts 42, New Straits Times (June 5, 1982)
9. Li, Francis (4 June 1982). "Anxious hours for stunned relatives". South China Morning Post. p. 16.
10. 1 dead, 17 injured in nursery attack Kindergarten gatekeeper detained after stabbings in Beijing, South China Morning Post (August 5, 2004)