Bush saddened by attack on US family
BEIJING (AP) - President Bush says he and wife Laura are saddened by a deadly attack on an American family and their Chinese tour guide in Beijing.
Bush says their thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. He added that the U.S. government has offered to provide any assistance the family needs.
A knife-wielding Chinese man attacked two relatives of a coach for the U.S. Olympic men's volleyball team at a tourist site Saturday, killing one and injuring the other on the first day of the Olympics. The man then committed suicide.
The brutal attack was all the more shocking because of the rarity of violent crime against foreigners in tightly controlled China, which has tightened security even more for the Olympics.
- posted on 08/09/2008
Father of former Olympian killed in Beijing
BEIJING (AP) - The murder of the father of a former Olympian at a Beijing landmark cast a sad shadow over the first full day of Olympic competition Saturday, just hours after China's jubilant opening of the Summer Games.
Todd and Barbara Bachman of Lakeville, Minn. - parents of 2004 volleyball Olympian Elisabeth "Wiz" Bachman and in-laws of U.S. men's volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon - were attacked by a Chinese man while visiting the 13th-century Drum Tower.
The U.S. Olympic Committee confirmed Bachman died from knife wounds and that Barbara Bachman suffered life-threatening injuries. She and their Chinese tour guide, who was also injured in the attack, were being treated in a Beijing hospital.
Elisabeth Bachman was with them at the time of the attack, but uninjured. Her father was chief executive officer for Bachman's, Inc., a home-and-garden center based in Minneapolis.
The assailant, Tang Yongming, 47, leapt to his death from a 130-foot (40-meter) -high balcony on the Drum Tower, just five miles (eight kilometers) from the main Olympics site, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The midday attack sent shock waves through the games precinct after the Olympics' spectacular opening ceremony had set an ebullient tone. President George W. Bush, in the Chinese capital for the games, expressed sadness while American athletes and Olympics officials reacted with disbelief.
There was no indication that the assailant knew that his victims had any connection to the games. "For all intents, it appears to be a random attack by a deranged man," an American member of the International Olympic Committee, Jim Easton, told The Associated Press. "The only thing we've heard is they were not identifiable except for a small volleyball pin which would probably be invisible to a guy."
Easton said the attack has stunned the Olympic community.
"It's certainly a down day, certainly for the U.S. people," he said. "Here it is supposed to be a great time of happiness and peace and all that. That's what we work hard for, then for one person to be able to put a dark cloud on that."
The U.S. women's indoor volleyball team heard about the killing of their former teammate's father before they took on Japan in a match Saturday. After their victory, player Logan Tom was obviously shaken.
"God, we all love Wiz," she said. "It's hard to put it in words. That's not something that's supposed to happen."
Tom then turned away, crying.
"It's just tragic," said U.S. woman's basketball coach Anne Donovan. "I don't know if there's another word for it. We said a prayer for them in the locker room. I get goosebumps talking about it. It's something obviously that just changes the events right now for the Olympic Games."
Violent crime against foreigners is rare in tightly controlled China, and the assault at the Drum Tower, five miles from the main Olympics site, occurred despite major security measures that have blanketed the capital city during the Olympics: A 100,000-strong security force plus countless volunteer guards have been deployed to protect against any trouble.
Beijing's Communist leaders are hypersensitive about anything that could take the shine off the games. China's Foreign Ministry said it had no immediate comment on the attack. It was not mentioned in the main evening news bulletin on state-controlled television, though it was reported by the official Xinhua News Agency and other Chinese-language media.
Interpol said initial investigations found nothing indicating the murder was linked to terrorism or organized crime.
"So far, our database check and preliminary analysis suggest that today's murder-suicide was an isolated, though brutal, murder of one person and assault on two others," said Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.
Tang's name was run through computers containing more than 178,000 individuals, including 12,000 suspected terrorists, and came up blank. But Noble noted that the investigation was not complete.
Interpol said Tang had apparently recently divorced and had not been seen by relatives for two months.
U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt visited the victims in hospital, and the embassy issued a statement later that said the attack "appears to be a senseless act of violence."
"We don't believe this was targeted at American citizens, and we don't believe this has anything to do with the Olympics," embassy spokeswoman Susan Stevenson said.
Jennie Finch, a member of the U.S. softball team, said her heart skipped a beat when she heard about the attack, but was undaunted.
"I'm here with my husband and son, so it's not easy but we're living our dreams and we're not going to live in fear," she said. "We're going to go out there every day and enjoy every day and celebrate it."
Attacks on foreigners in China are extremely rare. A Canadian model was murdered last month in Shanghai - police said she stumbled onto a burglary. In March, a screaming, bomb-strapped hostage-taker who commandeered a bus with 10 Australians aboard in the popular tourist city of Xi'an was shot dead by a police sniper.
Shanghai and Beijing are still safer than most cities of their size. Punishments for crimes against foreigners are heavier than for crimes against Chinese, and police-linked neighborhood watch groups are highly vigilant. Chinese are not allowed to own guns. Still, the U.S. government has warned Americans against muggings, beatings and even carjackings, especially in the nightlife and shopping districts of large cities.
The Drum Tower is one of few ancient structures still in fast-developing Beijing. Long ago, drummers pounded their massive instruments on the hour to let people in the imperial city know the time. It is located on an important central axis of the city, to the north of the Forbidden City, which was home to the emperor.
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Steve Wilson in Beijing contributed to this report.
- posted on 08/10/2008
News of Attack Jolts U.S. Women's Volleyball Team
Women Play On, Win in Volleyball
By Les Carpenter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 10, 2008; D01
BEIJING, Aug. 9 -- The call went out quickly to the members of the U.S. women's volleyball team Saturday afternoon, a beacon of alarm cutting into their last moments of freedom before a match later in the evening. The message: Return immediately. A team meeting had been called.
Once gathered at the Olympic Village, the 12 women sat bewildered as their coach, "Jenny" Lang Ping, stood before them in tears and tried to deliver the news that the parents of one of their former teammates, Elisabeth "Wiz" Bachman, had been attacked earlier in the day. Bachman's father, Todd, was dead, his wife in critical condition.
Lang struggled to find appropriate words. Several times, she broke down until finally another coach finished the announcement.
A chill went through the room. The players wept with Lang.
With a match looming just five hours after the meeting, the players somehow had to find their composure and prepare. They moved about the dorms in a fog, many still crying, changing for the game and wondering if they would be doing some kind of tribute, a black armband, something. They were told they could not.
"You never expect something like that," outside hitter Kim Willoughby said after the team beat Japan, 3-1 (25-20, 20-25, 25-19, 25-21), in their first match played late Saturday. "It was hard to process it."
Todd Bachman was a popular figure among the players, flying to games, cheering them on and leaving little notes of encouragement. Even after their daughter left the team and married Hugh McCutcheon, the head coach of the men's volleyball team, Bachman and his wife, Barbara, would visit the players and laugh.
"I told them they had to be strong," Lang said after the match. "We have fans that love us, and we have to show that spirit. It's very difficult for your players but you have to move on. We only had hours to get ready to play."
For Lang this was especially difficult. Beijing is her home town, and the arena in which the match took place, Capital Gymnasium, was a place where she had played many times. What should have been a triumphant return instead became a struggle to absorb a random act of violence on the Drum Tower, one of the city's most cherished landmarks.
"This is the first time in my life to deal with this before a game," she said. "I have to have patience and let our players get over it, to help them deal with it."
Somehow they did, even after winning the match's first of five sets, dropping the second before rallying in the third and fourth to win. Willoughby said she has long been able to enter a match with many things on her mind and then put those aside when play begins. And while she was able to do this Saturday, she was also rattled by the brutality of the attack by a man who then committed suicide by jumping off the building.
"You kind of accept it more when it's a natural occurrence," Willoughby said. "But you don't accept it when it's violence. Then to be a coward and kill himself, come on, he just ruined an entire family. Ridiculous amounts of people are affected by that."
The players did not know that Elisabeth Bachman was with her parents when they were attacked at the Drum Tower, located in the middle of the city, and witnessed the stabbing.
"Now you know it's more disturbing," Willoughby said. "She's a very good Christian girl, but now you have to think, 'What if it wasn't her father, it was her?' "
Some players said they really didn't prepare much for the match after hearing the news. The strategy meeting planned for Saturday evening was canceled. Many players phoned their parents and families in tears.
On the match's final point, Willoughby jumped up to block a Japan player's spike, and the American women shrieked. They laughed and hugged, and then they remembered Bachman and were in tears again.
"It was very tough for everyone" Willoughby said. "The thing about it is I can come in with a lot of things on my mind, but when I start to play, I can put them all aside and focus on one thing."
On Saturday night, that provided relief, at least for an hour and a half.
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