Thailand Mass ShootingGrieving Families Prepare for Funerals of Victims of Day Care Rampage

Relatives collapsed in grief as coffins were brought to a temple in the city in northern Thailand, where many of the victims, mostly children, will receive Buddhist rites.

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The New York Times

Here are the latest developments in the mass shooting in Thailand.

Grieving family members began preparations to lay to rest the victims killed in a deadly rampage at a day care center in northern Thailand, as the country’s top officials arrived to console the devastated community struggling with unanswered questions about the attack that left 36 dead on Thursday.

Portraits of the victims, 24 of whom were young children, began to emerge, showing the magnitude of loss: A 3-year-old who loved racing toy cars and riding in real ones. A pregnant teacher whose husband said she was “doing her duty as teacher to the fullest capacity.” A young girl who liked to play pretend with her grandmother. Here is the latest:

  • Thailand’s King, Maha Vajiralongkorn, was expected to pay a rare public visit to hospitals treating survivors in the area on Friday evening. Prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, met with some of the families of victims. Earlier in the day, a red carpet was placed in front of the child care center to welcome visiting officials, but was quickly removed after an online backlash.

  • The legally owned 9-millimeter gun used by the attacker, Panya Kamrab, focused scrutiny on rules that allow soldiers and law enforcement officers to buy personal firearms from the government and avoid some checks that apply to civilians. Mr. Panya had been fired from the police force for possession of methamphetamine. Following the attack, he killed himself, his wife and his son at home, police said.

  • Thailand’s national police chief, Gen. Damrongsak Kittipraphat, said Friday he had received a hospital report indicating that no drugs had been found in the gunman’s system.

  • Four children stabbed in the attack survived and were in good condition, the country’s health minister said. Most had been stabbed in the head.

Sui-Lee WeeRyn Jirenuwat
Oct. 7, 2022, 1:41 p.m. ET

Sui-Lee Wee and

Nearly run off road by the day-care shooter, a man is a shaken witness to carnage.

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Volunteer rescue workers loading the body of a victim of the mass shooting into an ambulance at the Udonthani Hospital morgue on Friday.Credit...Andre Malerba for The New York Times

Wasan Kanwilai, 30, was riding on his motorbike Thursday afternoon when a white Toyota pickup from the opposite side swerved into his lane. The vehicle was damaged, its front bumper falling down on one side.

He nearly lost his balance. He was furious and called the police to report that he had seen a white pickup truck driving recklessly, telling the officer that it could endanger other people.

He decided to give chase, doing a U-turn and following the truck. Then he saw a rescue truck with its siren on heading in the same direction.

The white pickup was still driving in a haphazard manner. Mr. Wasan tailed him for about 200 to 300 meters and then he saw a motorcyclist lying on the ground. A little farther on, at a spot around three kilometers from the day care center where dozens were killed, he spotted three bloodied people lying on the side of the road — a woman, a little boy and an older woman. Then he saw a man with what looked like a stab wound on his head.

These roadside casualties, it appears, were victims shot, run down or otherwise wounded by the gunman as he headed toward his home. Their conditions were not clear.

Mr. Wasan called a friend who helps out rescuing people in distress. His friend said he had heard that there was a mass shooting in Uthai Sawan, a subdistrict close to him.

He called his friend Anurak Prompong, an official at that subdistrict administrative office who goes by the nickname “Boy.” It was 1:09 p.m.

Mr. Anurak didn’t pick up, but Mr. Wasan sent him a message on Facebook.

“Boy, how are you doing?”

“Pik, I’m in the dormitory,” Mr. Anurak responded, using Mr. Wasan’s nickname. “I’m really scared.”

“I hope you are safe and that the Buddha protects you,” Mr. Wasan wrote back.

He decided to drive to the subdistrict office to check in on his friend. Outside the day care center, he saw a man who appeared to be in his 40s and a young child lying in a pool of blood. “The man died with his eyes open,” Mr. Wasan said.

He messaged his friend again: “There are many dead kids.”

“I’m too scared to come out,” Mr. Anurak replied.

Mr. Wasan, who has a 3-year-old girl and a 4-day-old newborn, said his eyes teared up when he was at the subdistrict office. “I keep thinking about all the kids and then you see the parents. It is so really heartbreaking. I can’t imagine what they feel.”

“And today I have just been pondering it over and over and looking at my kids,” he said. “Like what if I got hit by that guy and got killed, how would my wife and my kids survive? It was a really close call.”

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Sui-Lee Wee
Oct. 7, 2022, 11:00 a.m. ET

Reporting from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, Thailand

The king and queen of Thailand visited the hospital where some of the 10 people who were wounded were being treated, according to the Thai government’s department of public relations. The department posted photos and cited Matichon, a Thai newspaper, as a source.

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Credit...Matichol Newspaper, via Associated Press
Sui-Lee WeeRyn Jirenuwat
Oct. 7, 2022, 8:03 a.m. ET

Sui-Lee Wee and

Twin boys were among the 24 children killed.

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The parents of Ongsa and Phupha waiting at the child care center on Friday.Credit...Andre Malerba for The New York Times

They loved doing the same things, like riding bicycles and playing football. They were her only two children, and in an instant, they were gone.

Pimpa Thana’s twin sons were at the child care center on Thursday when a man wielding a knife and gun set out on a rampage, killing both Ongsa and Phupha, 3-year-old children who would have turned 4 next month, their mother said.

“They were my only children. It is really sad. What I’m doing now is I’m waiting for their bodies to arrive,” Ms. Pimpa, 31, said on Friday while waiting in a town hall with other grieving relatives. “I didn’t think something like this would happen. I would never imagine it.”

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Ongsa and Phupha would have turned 4 years old next month.

Ongsa and Phupha were enrolled at the day care center last year. Like many people from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, where the shooting occurred, Ms. Pimpa migrated elsewhere for work, leaving her children to live with their grandmother. Nong Bua Lamphu Province is one of Thailand’s poorest. Ms. Pimpa works at an office in Ayutthaya Province, about 8 hours away by car.

“I always video call them everyday,” she said of her sons. She visited them every month, she added. On Thursday, her mother called to tell her about the violence that had descended upon their town, and to say that both Ongsa and Phupha were at the day care center.

“When I heard that, I was really worried about them, but I tried not to think too much,” she said. “I was trying not to think too much about what could happen to them.”

She had just visited her twin boys last month, she added. “I didn’t think that would be the last time.”

Victoria Kim
Oct. 7, 2022, 6:56 a.m. ET

Thai funerals, normally celebratory affairs, are different for children and victims of murder.

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Family members and mourners laid flowers outside the day care center in northeastern Thailand where a gunman killed three dozen people, including 24 young children.CreditCredit...Andre Malerba for The New York Times

Funerals in Thailand, often carried out according to Buddhist tradition, are typically colorful, multiday affairs replete with symbolism to bring the community together, sometimes as much a celebration of passage into the next life as solemn mourning.

But when they involve children or others who die prematurely, including murder victims, the rites can be very different, because such deaths are considered unlucky and their associated spirits potentially harmful, according to scholars of Thai funeral rites.

In Thailand, where about 90 percent of the population is Theravada Buddhist, the rites are led by monks and involve the family and members of the community. The deceased’s body is washed by the family, after which a coin is placed in the mouth, white string tied to the hands and feet, and flowers placed on the body.

The dead remain in the house for days while mourners gather over food, sermons and chanting rites. On the final day, the coffin is taken to the cremation site in a funeral procession. Monks and mourners are all connected by a white string meant to guide the spirit to the next life.

For sudden, untimely deaths, though, the deceased may be cremated swiftly — within a day or two — or buried without cremation. Ceremonies are carried out quickly to protect local residents from the possibly harmful spirits, according to academic accounts.

In the case of the victims of the day care massacre, the Thai government said in a statement that family members would receive funeral expenses from a compensation fund.

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Muktita Suhartono
Oct. 7, 2022, 6:23 a.m. ET

Thailand's national police chief, Gen. Damrongsak Kittipraphat, said he received a report from the Udon Thani Hospital that indicated no drugs had been found in the gunman’s system in the 72 hours before he died.

Sui-Lee WeeRyn Jirenuwat
Oct. 7, 2022, 5:38 a.m. ET

Sui-Lee Wee and

‘Let her be safe and let her grow up’: a grandmother in grief.

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Aom Am’s favorite game was pretending to sell things in a shop.

Thongkul Phuphadhin was at home when she got a frantic phone call from her daughter on Thursday afternoon.

“Mom, there’s a shooting at the subdistrict office. Can you go there urgently?” Ms. Thongkul, 52, recalled her daughter, Wassana Photipol, 29, saying.

The day care center that Ms. Wassana’s child, Thidaporn Photipol, attends is near the subdistrict office. Ms. Thongkul said her knees were feeling weak and that she could not go. She asked her daughter how many people had been shot and the response was: three or four.

Her immediate reaction was relief. Ms. Thongkul said she prayed to Buddha to protect her granddaughter, whom the family calls “Aom Am.”

Aom Am was the third child of Ms. Wassana, who lives in the main town in Nong Bua Lumphu Province.

“I prayed to Buddha to protect my granddaughter because she was only going to school,” she said, weeping. “Let her be safe and let her grow up.”

Ms. Thongkul decided to head to the day care center anyway. While she was on her way, a neighbor told her: “Aom Am is dead.”

For Ms. Thongkul, Thursday’s attack was an incalculable loss. She said the gunman killed six people in total in her extended family, including a teacher who was eight months pregnant.

Ms. Thongkul recalled that her granddaughter was well-mannered and always tidied up her toys. She addressed all her cousins by Thai honorifics and loved playing pretend.

Her favorite game was pretending to sell stuff in a shop, asking her grandmother and other relatives, “Do you want to pay by cash or electronic transfer?”

“Before she goes to school every morning, she would hug and kiss me,” said Ms. Thongkul. “She would always say: ‘I love you grandma.’”

Sui-Lee Wee
Oct. 7, 2022, 5:33 a.m. ET

Reporting from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, Thailand

Grieving family members are viewing their loved ones’ remains for the first time as the coffins are brought into a temple for Buddhist rites. Several women let out anguished screams from inside the temple hall. Paramedics carried out some of these women onto mats that were laid outside the temple.

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Credit...Andre Malerba for The New York Times

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Oct. 7, 2022, 4:34 a.m. ET

Thailand’s gun laws have loopholes for soldiers and police officers.

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A man entering a gun shop in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, in 2020.Credit...Chalinee Thirasupa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The former police officer who attacked a day care center in Thailand on Thursday had legally bought the 9-millimeter gun he used, officials said, a revelation that focused new scrutiny on rules that allow soldiers and law enforcement officers to buy personal firearms from the government.

Under the regulations, such buyers avoid some of the checks that apply to civilians. The attacker, Panya Kamrab, had been fired from the police force after he was arrested while possessing methamphetamine. But it was unclear when he bought the firearm and whether he was using drugs at the time.

Experts say the legal loopholes help explain why there are an estimated 10 million guns in Thailand — and why the country has such a large black market for firearms.

After Thailand’s last mass shooting, when a disgruntled army sergeant killed 29 people and wounded dozens of others in 2020, investigators found that he was the legal owner of five firearms.

There have also been cases in which Thai police officers bought firearms and sold them to civilians. In 2019, for example, a police captain in a city near Bangkok was arrested and charged with buying 9-millimeter pistols through official channels and selling them for a few hundred dollars apiece, The Bangkok Post reported at the time.

“If someone is willing to take a big risk, just about anyone can illicitly purchase a firearm through social media sites and apps like Line, Twitter and Facebook,” said Michael Picard, an independent researcher who studies the arms trade and has conducted fieldwork in Thailand.

On paper, Thailand’s gun regulations are relatively strict. Assault weapons are banned, there are limits on the number of guns and ammunition that can be sold or owned, and civilians must pay a tax of up to 40 percent to buy a firearm legally.

Civilians who want a gun must also undergo a background check and provide a reason for ownership, such as hunting or self-defense. Possessing one illegally carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of 20,000 baht (about $535).

But the loopholes in Thailand’s gun laws make it easier for officials to register firearms, Mr. Picard said. They don’t pay import tax, for starters, and they can buy guns directly from a government body that issues firearm licenses.

Closing the loopholes should be the first step in any effort to reform the country’s gun laws, he said, adding that another would be digitizing Thailand’s firearm registry.

“Unfortunately, these processes are subject to little external civilian oversight and accountability, so while any of this would be feasible in a functional democracy, it essentially depends on the will of the junta,” Mr. Picard said, referring to Thailand’s military government.

Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told The New York Times on Friday that he had a “big concern” that previous mass shootings in Thailand had also been carried out by law enforcement officials.

“We will surely have to do something,” he said. “I’m sure that the national security network will have to remeasure things that could be done to enforce gun control.”

Sui-Lee WeeRyn Jirenuwat
Oct. 7, 2022, 4:28 a.m. ET

Sui-Lee Wee and

A 3-year-old known as Stamp loved racing toy cars and the sound of trucks’ horns.

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Nathanapas “Stamp” Songserm with his grandfather.

NAKLANG, Thailand — His nickname was Stamp, and he was going to turn 4 in a few months.

Nathanapas “Stamp” Songserm was a lively child who loved racing toy cars and riding in real ones, Kham Pornnikhom, 56, said of his grandson. Hearing the horns of trucks as they whizzed by brought him particular joy, Mr. Kham recalled.

Mr. Kham and his wife were raising their grandson because Mr. Kham’s daughter, Nathanapas’s mother, is a factory worker in Chonburi Province, eight and a half hours by car from their home in Nong Bua Lamphu Province. Nathanapas was her only child.

Around noon on Thursday, someone said in a message to the village chat group on the messaging app Line that there was a gunman targeting people on the streets.

“I didn’t think he would come into the day care,” Mr. Kham said, speaking at a town hall with other grieving family members of victims as he waited for his grandson’s body to be returned to him from the morgue. “He wouldn’t go into such a place.”

“Once I knew, it was just shock,” he said.

Mr. Kham showed reporters from The New York Times photographs of his grandson at a beach in Chonburi Province in April during the Songkran holiday, the Thai new year. The boy was beaming as he sat on the sand, surrounded by sand castles.

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Sui-Lee Wee
Oct. 7, 2022, 4:21 a.m. ET

Reporting from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, Thailand

The prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, and the deputy prime minister, Prawit Wongsuwan, along with an entourage of military officials, arrived at the town hall where relatives of the victims were gathered. The crowd applauded.

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Credit...Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images
Andre Malerba
Oct. 7, 2022, 3:18 a.m. ET

Reporting from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, Thailand

Relatives and friends of the victims of the mass shooting gathered at the Uthaisawan subdistrict administrative office, opposite the day care center where the attack took place.

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Credit...Andre Malerba for The New York Times
The New York Times
Oct. 7, 2022, 2:14 a.m. ET

The gunman, Panya Kamrab, 34, had been set to go on trial Friday for possession of methamphetamine. The Royal Thai Police confirmed that Mr. Panya had been fired from the police force in June after being arrested with the stimulant.

The New York Times
Oct. 7, 2022, 1:57 a.m. ET

Top Thai officials send condolences to the victims’ families.

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Thailand’s national flag at half-staff outside the Nong Bua Lamphu hospital on Friday.Credit...Lauren Decicca/Getty Images

A number of Thailand’s top officials have sent condolences to families of the victims of the country’s worst mass shooting by a sole perpetrator.

Thailand’s prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, and his deputy were among the first senior officials to comment on Thursday after a gunman killed 36 people, 24 of them children. Many of the victims were killed at a government-run day care center in a poor northeastern province.

“My deepest condolences to the bereaved and injured families,” Mr. Prayuth said on Facebook. “Let all parties involved help and heal those affected urgently.”

Mr. Prayuth and the country’s defense minister later asked all government agencies in Thailand to lower their flags to half-staff, his spokesman said. His deputy prime minister, Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, also sent condolences to the families of those killed, including relatives of the gunman’s wife and 4-year-old child.

As for Thailand’s king, Maha Vajiralongkorn, he will place the victims of the attack under royal patronage, according to Gen. Damrongsak Kittipraphat, the national police chief. That means the king will pay for the funerals of those killed and the medical expenses of the wounded.

Mr. Prayuth, the prime minister, was expected to meet with some of the families on Friday afternoon. The king was expected to visit a hospital in the area in the evening.

On Friday morning, a red carpet had been laid out at the day care center where the attack occurred — a gesture that some social media users criticized as insensitive. It was later removed.

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Muktita Suhartono
Oct. 7, 2022, 12:59 a.m. ET

Early in the day, a red carpet had been placed outside the day care center in preparation for the arrival of the various Thai authorities, including the king. It was later removed after a backlash online.

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Credit...Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Muktita Suhartono
Oct. 7, 2022, 12:48 a.m. ET

The prime minister has asked all government agencies across the country to lower their flags to half staff on Friday to express condolences to the deceased, their familes and the injured.

Sui-Lee Wee
Oct. 7, 2022, 12:35 a.m. ET

Reporting from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, Thailand

Officials at Udon Thani Hospital said more bodies were arriving at the morgue on Friday after it had filled up the day before.

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Credit...Andre Malerba for The New York Times
Sui-Lee Wee
Oct. 7, 2022, 12:32 a.m. ET

Reporting from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, Thailand

Four children stabbed in the attack survived, the health minister said.

UDON THANI — Four children survived after being stabbed in Thursday’s deadly attack at a day care center in northern Thailand, the country’s health minister said.

The children, most of whom had been stabbed in the head, were being treated and were in good condition, said the minister, Anutin Charnvirakul. After visiting one of them, a 3-year-old, at Udon Thani Hospital, the minister said the boy was hooked up to a breathing tube and responsive despite suffering a skull fracture.

The boy’s mother was killed and his grandmother injured in the attack, which left 24 children dead, Mr. Anutin said. The other surviving children were being treated by neurosurgeons at hospitals elsewhere in the province, according to the minister.

Mr. Anutin said that the authorities were in the process of conducting an autopsy on the gunman to determine what, if any, substances were in his body during the time of the shooting. The assailant, a former police officer, had been fired in June for possession of methamphetamine.

Asked by a Times reporter on whether it was time for Thailand to overhaul its gun laws, the minister said “it was people” who were violating the gun laws.

“However, I’m sure that the people in charge, the prime minister, the chief of police, will surely consider it and try to tighten the enforcement as much as they can,” he said.

The minister said it was a “big concern” that perpetrators behind other previous mass shooting episodes in the country had also been law enforcement officials.

“We will surely have to do something,” he said.

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Sui-Lee Wee
Oct. 7, 2022, 12:06 a.m. ET

Reporting from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, Thailand

Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul visited Kritsakorn Ruangcharoen, a 3-year-old who had been stabbed in the head outside the day care center, at the hospital. Doctors told Mr. Anutin that the boy, who is hooked up to a breathing tube, is responsive after suffering a skull fracture. His mother died and his grandmother was injured in the attack.

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Credit...Andre Malerba for The New York Times
Sui-Lee Wee
Oct. 7, 2022, 12:06 a.m. ET

Reporting from Nong Bua Lamphu Province, Thailand

Saeksan Sriraj, the husband of a pregnant teacher who was killed in the attack, thanked people for their support in a Facebook post. “My wife was doing her duty as teacher to the fullest capacity. She’s now a teacher in heaven. My baby boy is now taking care of his mother in the heaven. I still cannot come to terms with it. What is the perpetrator’s heart made of?” He also posted a sonogram image.

Hannah Beech
Oct. 6, 2022, 11:10 p.m. ET

Thailand’s rigid society boasts strong medical services, but not for mental health.

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A police officer standing guard outside a child care center on Thursday.Credit...Lauren Decicca/Getty Images

Thailand has a vibrant medical system, particularly for an upper-middle income nation. But that strength does not extend to mental health services. A string of mass shootings committed by security personnel in recent years has highlighted concerns about the psychological fitness of members of the military and the police, who must hew to strict hierarchies and endure low pay.

Panya Kamrab, 34, who was identified by the Royal Thai Police as the gunman in the mass shooting at the day care center in northeastern Thailand on Thursday, was an officer in the force until he was dismissed in June for drug possession.

A mere 2.3 percent of Thailand’s health expenditures are allocated for mental health, according to the World Health Organization. Thailand, with a population of about 70 million, had only 656 psychiatrists and 422 psychologists in the entire country, according to the W.H.O.’s Mental Health Atlas 2020. The Royal Thai Police alone has roughly 220,000 officers.

Mr. Panya was set to go on trial on Friday, and the 9-millimeter pistol used in the attack was legally owned, the police said.

“He abused drugs and was very stressed and upset about his career, his position, his status,” said Kritsanapong Phutrakul, the chair of the faculty of criminology and justice administration at Rangsit University and a police lieutenant colonel. “To reduce the risk to Thai society, his gun should have been taken away from him when he was fired.”

Military-style hierarchies are imposed on many facets of Thai society, from schools to offices. The chains of command can leave lower rank-and-file people with little recourse if they disagree with superiors’ orders.

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This handout picture released by the Royal Thai Police on Thursday shows National Police Chief, Damrongsak Kittiprapat, center, speaking with rescue workers at the nursery following in a mass shooting, in the northern Thai province of Nong Bua Lam Phu.Credit...Royal Thai Police, via Getty Images

Outside the security forces themselves, the military’s influence is profound. Prayuth Chan-ocha, the prime minister of Thailand, is a former army chief who took power in a coup. His deputy is also a former army chief.

And the nation is trained to pay obeisance to the Thai royal family. Courtiers crawl along the floor in a submissive pose in front of senior royals. A notoriously tough lèse-majesté law makes it a crime to defame senior members of the monarchy, and a long list of people have been jailed for such offenses.

Dissatisfaction with institutional strictures prompted students to protest in recent years, at first demanding an easing of rules on hairstyles and dress. The rallies expanded to encompass calls for reforms to the government and the monarchy.

The perils of such a rigid society may have helped catalyze what, until Thursday, had been the deadliest mass shooting by a single perpetrator in Thai history. Two years ago, Sgt. Major Jakrapanth Thomma went on a killing spree at a shopping mall and army base, killing 29 people and wounding 58 others. He was angered by a financial dispute with the family of his superior officer, according to the country’s then army chief. Members of that family refused to pay him money he was owed, he told friends. He had run out of options, he told them.

The soldier was shot dead by the authorities, ending the attack. But questions lingered about why he had targeted civilians at a shopping mall after killing people on a military base.

Last month, a police lieutenant general opened fire in a military school in Bangkok, killing two people.

“From a security risk perspective, we have to better check the mental health of people who own guns,” said Lieutenant Colonel Kritsanapong.

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