Ex-Cop Kills 37, Including 24 Sleeping Children, At Thai Daycare

Let's just take a moment for those kids.

In what is now the deadliest rampage in the history of Thailand, a former police officer went to a daycare center in a town called Uthai Sawan, armed with two guns and a knife and killed 37 people, 24 of them sleeping children. 

The suspect has been identified as 34-year-old Panya Kamrap, who lost his job last year after getting caught with methamphetamines and had a court appearance earlier in the day on charges related to using and selling them. The verdict was meant to be delivered on Friday, but rather than wait to hear it, he decided it would be better to show up at a daycare and kill a bunch of little children while they slept.

Following the mass murder, Kamrap fled the scene, drove into a crowd of people, injuring several while shooting at them from his pick-up truck. He then went home and killed three more people — his wife, his own child, and himself.

When police arrived on the scene, they found dead bodies of adults and children both inside and outside the school and their blood smeared all over the wall.

Kamrap's son had previously attended the daycare but had not been there for over a month, Headteacher Nanticha Panchum told the BBC. She described him as "polite and chatty" whenever he would drop his son off. This time he came looking for his son, who wasn't there at the time.

"He was already stressed and when he couldn't find his child he was more stressed and started shooting," police spokesperson Paisal Luesomboon told Reuters, adding, "He started shooting, slashing, killing children at the Uthai Sawan daycare centre."

"I knew it was a gun because I heard multiple gunshots, and then I saw him put in the bullets and point the gun at me. I called the teacher, and the teacher was hugging the child." said one of the preschool teachers who survived . "He kicked the mirror and I climbed the walls and asked for help. He was inside the child centre for a long time. He used a knife and cut all the kids' heads. He was carrying a small gun. I didn't know he was going to kill the kids. I thought he was [going to] come out but he stayed inside a long time. He used a knife and stabbed all the kids. He also stabbed a pregnant teacher. Only [a] few months till she gives birth. He stabbed my staff. That's all I know."

Firearm-related deaths in Thailand are rare, though more common than in other Asian countries, owing to the nation's slightly more lax gun laws. Prior to this, the largest mass shooting the country had experienced was the 2020 rampage of soldier Jakraphanth Thomma, who killed 29 people in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima.

It's hard to even know what to say about this kind of thing, about the fact that 13 adults and 24 kids who were just beginning their lives no longer exist because one jackass was mad about getting in trouble for the methamphetamines he chose to take and sell. About the families who are now going to have to live without their loved ones, and live out their own lives knowing those people and children spent their last moments in terror. It's just heartbreaking beyond all measure.

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