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Suspected child attacker arrested after online footage

Xinhua, May 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

Police in a northwestern Chinese province have arrested a man suspected of beating a toddler, after surveillance footage of the brutal attack stirred an Internet outrage.

The public security bureau of Luochuan County, Shaanxi Province, said on Thursday that the suspect was a 28-year-old man surnamed Wang, who suffered from mental illness.

Police said the attack happened on Monday evening when Wang suddenly assaulted a two-year-old boy who was playing with a broom outside a restaurant in Fengqi Township.

The child suffered skull fractures but is not in life-threatening condition, said the bureau, which is still investigating the incident.

A video which went viral on microblogs showed a man knocking the child onto the ground, before repeatedly stamping on his head and using the broom and dustpan to hit him.

A motorbike rider and a pedestrian passed by during the half-minute atrocity without stopping to intervene. The attacker was then subdued by a group of people walking out of the restaurant.

The story has prompted questions over treatment of people with mental disorders as well as the apathy of the passers-by.

There has been a spate of child attacks by mentally ill people reported in China in recent years. In November, a knife-wielding mental patient killed one child and seriously injured another in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Endi