Police in northeastern Thailand said a soldier shot and killed more than 10 people, while live-streaming part of the rampage, and was holed up at a popular shopping mall. Royal Thai Police spokesman Krissana Pattanacharoen said more than 10 people had been killed. The total number of wounded was not immediately known.
AFP, citing emergency services, reported that at least 17 people had died. The shooter appeared to be armed with an assault rifle, based on security camera video aired on Thai Rath television
Thai Rath said the incident began at about 3:30 p.m. It appeared to be unresolved five hours later.
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The suspect posted messages on his Facebook page during the rampage, including “No one can escape death” and “Should I give up?” In a later post, he wrote, “I have stopped already.”
In one of the photos on the page, he is shown wearing a green camouflaged military helmet while a fireball and black smoke rage behind him. In one Facebook video — since deleted — the assailant, wearing an army helmet, filmed from an open jeep saying, “I’m tired… I can’t pull my finger anymore” and making a trigger symbol with his hand, AFP reported.
A police officer contacted by phone in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima said the soldier initially shot dead another soldier and a woman and wounded a third person, apparently over a land dispute.
City and neighborhood police officers, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to release information, said the man took a gun from his base and drove to the Terminal 21 mall, shooting along the way. Several Thai media reported that he traveled in a military vehicle. Nakhon Ratchasima is also known as Korat.
Video taken outside the mall and shared on social media showed people taking cover in a parking lot as gunshots were fired.
The mall was shut down and the street outside was closed while the authorities tried to arrest the gunman and rescue shoppers inside.
Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantrawanich identified the suspect as Sgt. Jakrapanth Thomma. He said police and military units had locked down the mall and the surrounding area.
“The gunman used a machine gun and shot innocent victims resulting in many injured and dead,” spokesman Krissana Pattanacharoen told AFP.
Nakhon Ratchasima is approximately 250 kilometers northeast of the Thai capital, Bangkok.
The Terminal 21 shopping mall is located on a major road near the center of the city, which is a hub for Thailand’s relatively poorer and rural northeastern region.
Gun violence is not unheard of in Thailand. Firearms can be obtained legally, and many Thais own guns. Mass shootings are rare, however, apart from the far south of the country, where authorities have for years battled a long-simmering separatist insurgency.
The incident came just a month after another high-profile mall shooting, in the central Thai city of Lopburi. In that case, a masked gunman carrying a handgun with a silencer killed three people, including a 2-year-old boy, and wounded four others as he robbed a jewelry store. A suspect, a school director, was arrested less than two weeks later and reportedly confessed, saying he did not mean to shoot anyone.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
