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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/sports/olympics/10beijing.html?hp
BEIJING — A Chinese man wielding a knife attacked two American tourists related to an American Olympic coach on Saturday, killing one of the tourists and wounding the other and their Chinese tour guide while the three were visiting an ancient tower in central Beijing. The attacker then killed himself by leaping from the tower, Chinese officials said.
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Nir Elias/Reuters
The Drum Tower in Beijing was the site of the attack on Saturday.
The attack came on the first day of the Olympic Games in Beijing, after a dazzling opening ceremony the previous night in which China sought to project an image of power and strength while welcoming thousands of foreign visitors. As news of the killing spread, it cast an instant pall over the city, from the warrens of old alleyways where Chinese are eager to open their arms to foreigners, to the stadiums where visitors waited in line for events like swimming and gymnastics.
The dead American was a man, and the injured American tourist and Chinese guide are both women, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. The United State Olympic Committee issued a statement giving broad details of the attack, but did not release the names of the victims. A spokesman for the committee, Darryl Seibel, said the surviving American’s injuries were “serious.”
A spokesman for the American Embassy also declined to give any names on Saturday afternoon, saying the embassy was working with the victims’ families.
The wounded victims were being treated at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, one of Beijing’s best medical centers, located in the Wangfujing shopping district. In the late afternoon, Olympic and Chinese officials and American visitors could be seen walking through the hallways and holding meetings in rooms.
Violence against foreigners is extremely rare in Beijing and throughout China, and all through preparations for the Games, Chinese leaders have taken pains to say that, more than anything else, these Olympics would be safe. The Chinese government has faced enormous challenges this year, notably during the Tibetan riots in March and the deadly earthquake in May, and is determined to show people both here in China and abroad that it can maintain strict control of the country under any circumstances.
The attack took place at noon on the second floor of the ancient Drum Tower, which lies on the north-south axis that runs from the Forbidden City to the main Olympic venue. The tower, a red dynastic-era building that was once used in conjunction with the nearby Bell Tower to signal the time of day, draws for tourists who climb up it for a sweeping view of one of the best preserved ancient neighborhoods in Beijing. The previous night, during the opening ceremony, foreigners and Chinese had mingled in the neighborhood and crowded into bars at nearby Houhai Lake to watch the televised festivities.
Xinhua identified the attacker as Tang Yongming, 47, from the city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. The news agency did not provide further details.
Chinese from across the country have made their way to Beijing for the Olympics, but there are also many long-term residents here from Zhejiang, which provides a steady supply of migrant workers for construction projects and other hard-labor jobs.
In recent weeks, the Chinese government has tightened security throughout the capital, reinforcing the usual police units with paramilitary police officers and soldiers. Surveillance cameras have been installed on lampposts, and tens of thousands of residents, most of them elderly, are volunteering as neighborhood sentries. They sit on curbsides and in alleys looking for any suspicious act or person.
Chinese officials had said they their greatest threat of violence came from terrorism, especially from militants seeking an independent state in the western region of Xinjiang.
Chinese generally do not exhibit violent hostilities toward Americans or the United States. During the opening ceremony on Friday night, the American delegation drew thunderous applause when it marched into the Bird’s Nest, from Chinese watching inside and outside the stadium. American sports stars in particular are admired by many Chinese.
The victims were not wearing any clothes that would identify them as American or visitors who had a connection to a U.S. team, Mr. Seibel said.
The volleyball team had been notified soon after the events occurred, and they are staying in the athletes’ village, he said. He did not know whether they would still compete in a match scheduled for Sunday.
President Bush and Laura Bush were both still in Beijing on Saturday. Ms. Bush toured the Forbidden City in the morning, and Mr. Bush had plans to watch a women’s volleyball match.“Laura and I were also saddened by the attack on an American family and their Chinese tour guide today in Beijing,” Mr. Bush said in his hotel after making a brief statement about the fighting in Georgia. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. And the United States government has offered to provide any assistance the family needs.”
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Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press
Chinese officers investigated the crime site on the Drum Tower.
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Spectators at Olympic venues began hearing about the attack shortly after it took place.
“To tell you the truth, this is really a shock because there’s so much security here,” said Annette Busateri, 31, a communications manager from Salt Lake City who was watching men’s gymnastics qualifications when she heard the news. “We were told that even at the public markets, there was a lot of security in plainclothes. There are guards everywhere and cameras. So I’m not sure how something like this could happen.”
She and her husband, Kirt Busateri, were traveling around China with a tour group, and they both said they would not be nervous on the tour. But when asked if they would still wear clothes with “U.S.A.” on them, they paused.
“I would, I think, because there is still national pride there,” Annette Busateri said. “You can’t let something like this change the way you live or make you shy away from being American.”
Tina Jacobson, 55, of Atlanta, was wearing a shirt with the American flag on it as she waited with her 19-year-old daughter Jackie to get into the fencing venue. They were in Beijing to cheer on Ms. Jacobson’s other daughter, Sada, who is competing in the women’s saber final Saturday night.
“I feel safe; we do a lot of traveling,” Tina Jacobson said. “This is a very big city and there are people who do bad things.”
Jackie said, “There are crazy people on every corner on the globe.”
A number of Americans interviewed in and around the Olympic venues all said they have been made to feel welcome by the Chinese.
In the afternoon, the Drum Tower itself remained sealed off by the police, but people were allowed to walk around the area and cars drove past on a wide street that runs along the tower’s south side. People interviewed in the area said they were shocked by the attack, and no one admitted to seeing or hearing anything earlier.
Facing the Drum Tower on its north side is the gray stone edifice of the Bell Tower. Both rise from a sea of ancient alleyways, called hutongs, that give much of Beijing its character. Few sights in the capital are more evocative than a glimpse of one of the towers from those alleys or from the shore of Houhai Lake. The terrace of the Drum Tower has a stunning view of the tiled rooftops of old courtyard homes nestled within the hutongs, and it is this panorama that would have drawn the two American tourists and their guide up into the tower on Saturday.
Though rare, violence has marred several Olympic Games. The deadliest incident took place during the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, when 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed by a Palestinian group calling itself Black September.
At the 1996 Atlanta Games, a pipe bomb exploded in Centennial Park, killing one woman who had traveled to the Olympics with her daughter and injuring more than 100 others. A Turkish cameraman died of a heart attack while responding to the blast.
In 2005, Eric Robert Rudolph, who had been a fugitive in the North Carolina wilderness for five years, pleaded guilty to the Atlanta bombing and three others, claiming they were motivated, in part, by his opposition to legalized abortion.
Murders of foreigners in China are almost as rare. The latest reported incident occurred last month in Shanghai, where a 23-year-old Canadian model, Diana O’Brien, was stabbed to death in an apartment complex. Chinese officials later said the police had arrested a young Chinese man who confessed to killing Ms. O’Brien during a botched robbery.
In 2006, an Italian woman, Sandri Paola, was stabbed to death on a street south of Chaoyang Park, in eastern Beijing. Ms. Paola had been in China more than a month on that trip, during which she was teaching Chinese at a French university. She had worked in the Italian embassy’s cultural department in 2004.
BEIJING — A Chinese man wielding a knife attacked two American tourists related to an American Olympic coach on Saturday, killing one of the tourists and wounding the other and their Chinese tour guide while the three were visiting an ancient tower in central Beijing. The attacker then killed himself by leaping from the tower, Chinese officials said.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Nir Elias/Reuters
The Drum Tower in Beijing was the site of the attack on Saturday.
The attack came on the first day of the Olympic Games in Beijing, after a dazzling opening ceremony the previous night in which China sought to project an image of power and strength while welcoming thousands of foreign visitors. As news of the killing spread, it cast an instant pall over the city, from the warrens of old alleyways where Chinese are eager to open their arms to foreigners, to the stadiums where visitors waited in line for events like swimming and gymnastics.
The dead American was a man, and the injured American tourist and Chinese guide are both women, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. The United State Olympic Committee issued a statement giving broad details of the attack, but did not release the names of the victims. A spokesman for the committee, Darryl Seibel, said the surviving American’s injuries were “serious.”
A spokesman for the American Embassy also declined to give any names on Saturday afternoon, saying the embassy was working with the victims’ families.
The wounded victims were being treated at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, one of Beijing’s best medical centers, located in the Wangfujing shopping district. In the late afternoon, Olympic and Chinese officials and American visitors could be seen walking through the hallways and holding meetings in rooms.
Violence against foreigners is extremely rare in Beijing and throughout China, and all through preparations for the Games, Chinese leaders have taken pains to say that, more than anything else, these Olympics would be safe. The Chinese government has faced enormous challenges this year, notably during the Tibetan riots in March and the deadly earthquake in May, and is determined to show people both here in China and abroad that it can maintain strict control of the country under any circumstances.
The attack took place at noon on the second floor of the ancient Drum Tower, which lies on the north-south axis that runs from the Forbidden City to the main Olympic venue. The tower, a red dynastic-era building that was once used in conjunction with the nearby Bell Tower to signal the time of day, draws for tourists who climb up it for a sweeping view of one of the best preserved ancient neighborhoods in Beijing. The previous night, during the opening ceremony, foreigners and Chinese had mingled in the neighborhood and crowded into bars at nearby Houhai Lake to watch the televised festivities.
Xinhua identified the attacker as Tang Yongming, 47, from the city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. The news agency did not provide further details.
Chinese from across the country have made their way to Beijing for the Olympics, but there are also many long-term residents here from Zhejiang, which provides a steady supply of migrant workers for construction projects and other hard-labor jobs.
In recent weeks, the Chinese government has tightened security throughout the capital, reinforcing the usual police units with paramilitary police officers and soldiers. Surveillance cameras have been installed on lampposts, and tens of thousands of residents, most of them elderly, are volunteering as neighborhood sentries. They sit on curbsides and in alleys looking for any suspicious act or person.
Chinese officials had said they their greatest threat of violence came from terrorism, especially from militants seeking an independent state in the western region of Xinjiang.
Chinese generally do not exhibit violent hostilities toward Americans or the United States. During the opening ceremony on Friday night, the American delegation drew thunderous applause when it marched into the Bird’s Nest, from Chinese watching inside and outside the stadium. American sports stars in particular are admired by many Chinese.
The victims were not wearing any clothes that would identify them as American or visitors who had a connection to a U.S. team, Mr. Seibel said.
The volleyball team had been notified soon after the events occurred, and they are staying in the athletes’ village, he said. He did not know whether they would still compete in a match scheduled for Sunday.
President Bush and Laura Bush were both still in Beijing on Saturday. Ms. Bush toured the Forbidden City in the morning, and Mr. Bush had plans to watch a women’s volleyball match.“Laura and I were also saddened by the attack on an American family and their Chinese tour guide today in Beijing,” Mr. Bush said in his hotel after making a brief statement about the fighting in Georgia. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. And the United States government has offered to provide any assistance the family needs.”
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press
Chinese officers investigated the crime site on the Drum Tower.
Interactive Schedule
Interactive Olympics Tracker
Follow the schedules of your favorite sports, day by day and event by event.
Times journalists and special contributors explore the Olympics in Beijing and on the Web from every angle — the politics, the culture and the competition.
* The Rings RSS Feed | Atom
Go to the Rings Blog »
Olympics 2008
Go to Complete Coverage »
Spectators at Olympic venues began hearing about the attack shortly after it took place.
“To tell you the truth, this is really a shock because there’s so much security here,” said Annette Busateri, 31, a communications manager from Salt Lake City who was watching men’s gymnastics qualifications when she heard the news. “We were told that even at the public markets, there was a lot of security in plainclothes. There are guards everywhere and cameras. So I’m not sure how something like this could happen.”
She and her husband, Kirt Busateri, were traveling around China with a tour group, and they both said they would not be nervous on the tour. But when asked if they would still wear clothes with “U.S.A.” on them, they paused.
“I would, I think, because there is still national pride there,” Annette Busateri said. “You can’t let something like this change the way you live or make you shy away from being American.”
Tina Jacobson, 55, of Atlanta, was wearing a shirt with the American flag on it as she waited with her 19-year-old daughter Jackie to get into the fencing venue. They were in Beijing to cheer on Ms. Jacobson’s other daughter, Sada, who is competing in the women’s saber final Saturday night.
“I feel safe; we do a lot of traveling,” Tina Jacobson said. “This is a very big city and there are people who do bad things.”
Jackie said, “There are crazy people on every corner on the globe.”
A number of Americans interviewed in and around the Olympic venues all said they have been made to feel welcome by the Chinese.
In the afternoon, the Drum Tower itself remained sealed off by the police, but people were allowed to walk around the area and cars drove past on a wide street that runs along the tower’s south side. People interviewed in the area said they were shocked by the attack, and no one admitted to seeing or hearing anything earlier.
Facing the Drum Tower on its north side is the gray stone edifice of the Bell Tower. Both rise from a sea of ancient alleyways, called hutongs, that give much of Beijing its character. Few sights in the capital are more evocative than a glimpse of one of the towers from those alleys or from the shore of Houhai Lake. The terrace of the Drum Tower has a stunning view of the tiled rooftops of old courtyard homes nestled within the hutongs, and it is this panorama that would have drawn the two American tourists and their guide up into the tower on Saturday.
Though rare, violence has marred several Olympic Games. The deadliest incident took place during the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, when 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed by a Palestinian group calling itself Black September.
At the 1996 Atlanta Games, a pipe bomb exploded in Centennial Park, killing one woman who had traveled to the Olympics with her daughter and injuring more than 100 others. A Turkish cameraman died of a heart attack while responding to the blast.
In 2005, Eric Robert Rudolph, who had been a fugitive in the North Carolina wilderness for five years, pleaded guilty to the Atlanta bombing and three others, claiming they were motivated, in part, by his opposition to legalized abortion.
Murders of foreigners in China are almost as rare. The latest reported incident occurred last month in Shanghai, where a 23-year-old Canadian model, Diana O’Brien, was stabbed to death in an apartment complex. Chinese officials later said the police had arrested a young Chinese man who confessed to killing Ms. O’Brien during a botched robbery.
In 2006, an Italian woman, Sandri Paola, was stabbed to death on a street south of Chaoyang Park, in eastern Beijing. Ms. Paola had been in China more than a month on that trip, during which she was teaching Chinese at a French university. She had worked in the Italian embassy’s cultural department in 2004.
