At around 16:00 local time on October 3, a shooting incident occurred at Siam Paragon Shopping Center in Bangkok, Thailand, with a number of Chinese tourists at the scene.
According to Xiao Zhou, a Chinese tourist who witnessed the whole incident, she was playing on the M level of the mall when suddenly three gunshots rang out from the toilet behind her. After the gunshots, people in the mall fled in all directions, panic spread to other floors and screams filled the mall. The young man, who was experiencing panic for the first time, described being “wrapped up in the crowd and running for his life.”
Local Thai media reported that the suspect in the case was arrested on the spot. Thai police revealed that the suspect, a 14-year-old boy with a gun, is currently under interrogation.
The shooting took place in the afternoon, when a thunderstorm was raging in downtown Bangkok, and a big traffic jam occurred in the city after the crowd poured out. Some Chinese tourists who could not get a taxi were sent back to their hotels by strangers, while others were not evacuated back to their accommodation until the early hours of the morning.
On October 4, according to the Chinese Embassy in Thailand, one Chinese citizen was killed and another injured in the shooting incident. At present, the victims have been identified, and the injured have been sent to the hospital in stable condition.
The Chinese Embassy in Thailand sent consular officials to the scene of the case at the first time to understand the situation, and went to the hospital to visit the injured, Thai Prime Minister Saita also went to the hospital to visit the injured Chinese.
Xiao Zhou and three companions have been traveling to Thailand for seven days, they plan to return home on October 4th. Their last day in Thailand was spent shopping at a mall in downtown Bangkok.
They chose the Siam Paragon Shopping Center, which is conveniently located near Bangkok’s BTS Siam station. Siam Paragon Shopping Center, which opened in 2005, was once the largest department store in Southeast Asia.
Thai time 16:00, she bought a bag in the shopping mall M layer, and friends, go to the bathroom next to the counter. 10 minutes later, Zhou just out of the bathroom soon, waiting for friends at the door, suddenly heard “bang, bang, bang” three consecutive gunshots. Xiao Zhou recalled that the gunfire from behind her inside the toilet, but also with echoes.
She was blindfolded in place and saw people in the mall screaming and running away, so she followed them. After running to the parking lot on level M, she heard another gunshot. She said she was afraid to stay in the parking lot and turned to run back, and saw a man in a restroom not far away beckoning her to hide in a bathroom stall.
Cho immediately ducked into one of the empty stalls and stood on the toilet, not daring to make a sound. She noticed that the cubicles next to her were filled with people from different countries.
Not long after entering the restroom, Xiao Zhou heard two more gunshots coming from the doorway. According to Xiao Zhou, this restroom was more than 100 meters away from the location where she first heard the gunshots, and this time the gunshots were louder and closer than the previous two, “My heart was about to jump out of my chest for fear of someone rushing in.”
After twenty minutes or so, another gunshot came from the other direction.
A few minutes later, there was no sound from outside. Gradually, someone went out of the cubicle, and Xiao Zhou stuck her head out to look outside and saw a uniformed Thai police officer, beckoning her to hurry. After Zhou went out of the restroom, she saw the crowd running without direction, and she ran all the way to the parking lot on the M level.
At the time of the shooting, Fu Qi (a pseudonym) was eating dessert with her boyfriend on the first floor. Suddenly, she heard a “loud bang”, which she first thought was a heavy object falling, then another bang, and the crowd began to run wildly.
Looking at the situation, she hesitated “for a second between hiding under the table and running away,” before being pulled by her boyfriend and running wildly outside the mall. She saw someone fall on the road, but had no time to care.
On the second floor of the mall, Ms. Zhang and her husband were on their honeymoon in Thailand, and had just gone up the escalator to go downstairs to buy gifts for their family when she saw someone running on the first floor. Ms. Zhang remembers that her husband yanked her while shouting “don’t go down, come back”, followed by two or three gunshots that she heard.
Ms. Zhang was so scared that she started to turn around and ran up the escalator, and because she was too panicked, she fell on the elevator and her leg hit the corner of the elevator. She was helped up by her husband several times before getting up.
As she recalled, when they ran back, there were quite a few people on the second floor who still didn’t know what had happened.
Ms. Zhang’s husband pulled her toward the second floor parking lot and ran, shouting “run” as they ran. “But there was a language barrier and everyone was in a state of confusion.” Then the crowd began to disperse, surrounded by screams.
Running to the intersection with the parking lot, Ms. Zhang’s knee began to bleed, her husband stopped to wipe her blood, when the crowd began to pour over, the two of them continued to run.
Fu Qi said she did not see the murderer, but was “wrapped up in running for her life”, and after fleeing the scene, the fear gradually came.
Fu Qi and her boyfriend ran outside the mall after heavy rain began to fall in Bangkok, and she said she saw people constantly running out and police cars and ambulances coming.
Min Chan and her family made their way along the mall’s security corridor, past the parking lot, and eventually escaped. Outside the mall, people were still screaming and running away. Chen Min and her family ran to another nearby mall before they dared to stop.
It was raining heavily outside, the road was waterlogged and the whole road was blocked. Zhou, who escaped, pulled open the door of a car and jumped in. Luckily, she met two local Thai girls who understood what Zhou was going through. Because she did not speak Thai, Xiao Zhou used cell phone software to communicate with them, and after more than an hour of traffic jam, she was sent to the hotel by the two girls.
Ms. Zhang and her husband both ran to the second floor parking lot and ran down to the road from the second floor parking lot.
She saw that there were still people outside who were ready to enter the mall, so she and her husband both ran and shouted in Chinese and English respectively, “Don’t enter, run.” Ms. Zhang recalls, “But again, the language wasn’t clear, and not everyone could understand us.”
The rainstorm got heavier and heavier, and Ms. Zhang and her husband didn’t get a taxi for a long time; later, they stopped a tricycle to leave. From the tricycle, they saw a police car heading in the direction of the incident.
She remembers that when they stopped to wipe the blood from their knees in the second-floor parking lot, crowds of people rushed by. There was a foreign girl who tugged on her arm as she passed by, saying in English, “Hurry up,” which she remembers still feeling touched, “I’m very grateful to her.”
On October 4, local time, the head of the Kyoto Police Department in Bangkok, Thailand, said police filed five preliminary charges against the suspect (male, 14 years old) who created the Siam Paragon shooting case, namely, intentional homicide, committing homicide, unlawful possession of a firearm, carrying a firearm into a public place without permission, and firing a firearm in a public place without permission.
Police said they are gathering more evidence on the other charges, and are currently investigating whether the suspect’s guardian violated the Child Protection Act, and prosecutors, medical and psychological experts are investigating to assess the suspect’s psychological state. The suspect is being held at the detention center of Bangkok’s Pathumwan police station and will be escorted to the juvenile court for trial on the afternoon of the 4th.
In addition, police have searched for bullets in the suspect’s home, which will be included in a separate investigation.
Chinese citizens injured in Bangkok, Thailand shopping center shooting in stable condition
According to CCTV News, on October 4, local time, the director of the Emergency Medical Service Center in Bangkok, Thailand, Yutana announced the treatment of the injured in the shooting incident at the Siam Paragon shopping center. Yuktana said that after the incident, the center transferred a total of 7 people, 1 person died on the spot, 2 people were sent to the police hospital, 1 person died on the way, 3 people were sent to Chulalongkorn Hospital, 1 person was sent to Bangkok Christian Hospital. Two of the five injured are still in the intensive care unit of the hospital. The condition of the one injured Chinese citizen is stable.