March 23 2009 - A twenty-year-old grade-ten pupil in Mayflower near Ermelo, South Africa ran amok on Sunday -- in which he hacked to death three people: a baby carried on the back of her teenaged mom and a 70-year-old grandmother. He also seriously injured twelve more people, mostly women.
Young black South Africans are increasingly suffering from such psychological rages and even torch themselves in thousands of annual, very manic suicides a year - mainly due infection with HIV-AIDS, top psychiatry UNISA professor Prof Mathsepo Matoane warned recently:
Matoane, pictured here, warned that the country's combined TB and AIDS epidemics among black soldiers are 'having a lethal impact on its military forces'.
While it’s not known whether the Mayflower township amok-runner was affected with HIV-AIDS, it was also known in the community that the young man was violent: the local community thus was mobilised very rapidly after his Sunday rampage and some neighbours were injured while trying to restrain him’. He’d also become violent the Friday before but had calmed down after police and ambulance personnel were called in.
However on Sunday, he managed to kill three and stab twelve more before he could be caught, said police.
“By the time the police arrived the man also had to be protected from his neighbours, who wanted to prise the amok-maker from the van and take revenge on him," a clearly distraught police captain Sabelo Mlangeni told the Sowetan newspaper.
Mlangeni also confirmed that the community had already warned them on Friday that this man was 'very violent', but said he’d 'calmed down' after police and an ambulance showed up.
However on Sunday morning, he again became violent and aggressive once again, and family members tried to tie him up with a rope while contacting the police.
He got lose, grabbed an axe, first attacking his brother before he went out into the street and started hacking people in the street," Mlangeni was quoted as saying.
The man then went into the house of the 70-year-old woman who lived alone and hacked her in the head. The woman died at once.
“Then he went into the street and hacked a baby to death, being carried on the back of her mother. And it was not long before the madman then attacked the shocked mother, killing her.”(telephone Mayflower police, 27 0 17-8813049)
By the time police showed up, he had killed three people and injured seven. Five more people were injured while he was being restrained, including a policeman and the man’s brother. At least twelve people are in a serious condition at area hospitals.
Police said when they showed up, the man was armed with a spade - and he struck out at a police officer, injuring the cop's hand.
The twenty-year-old suspect, described as a grade ten pupil, sustained a head wound during the rampage. After his arrest, he was first taken to hospital for treatment under police guard. On Monday he was taken from the hospital to the local police lockup, and is expected to appear in the Mayflower district's court on three charges of murder and twelve attempted murder soon.
Apparently there are plans to have him admitted to the local mental hospital, Weskoppies, for a psychiatric examination before he can be tried.
Police did not say which high school he was attending. However there’s only one high school in Mayflower suburb, near Elmelo.
http://jv.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2490067,00.html
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