A man wielding a sword stabbed a woman outside Beijing’s Sanlitun shopping center around noon today (Aug. 13). The woman died in a nearby hospital, and the man was arrested, according to the Beijing police (link in Chinese).
The murder occurred in front of the shopping center’s iconic Uniqlo clothing store, where last month an amateur sex video that went viral was shot in a fitting room, leading to the arrest of five people.
The 25-year-old suspect killed the woman and injured a French man “for no reason,” according to the Beijing police. He then entered the Uniqlo store and grabbed a mannequin, which he broke into pieces. Next he tossed aside the sword and lay on the ground, where the police apprehended him.
Pictures posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo (link in Chinese) show the man walking around with a blade nearly a meter long, and later the woman sprawled on the ground covered in blood, with a foreign man looking after her.
Chinese media reported (link in Chinese) that the suspect is a street vendor, and so was his victim. That’s led to speculation, not yet confirmed, that the killing was related to a dispute over territory.