3 killed in knife attack after train station smoke bombed in Taiwan, suspect plunges to his death from department store

A man with a knife and a smoke grenade attacked crowds indiscriminately in Taiwan’s capital on Friday evening, killing at least three people and injuring nine others, according to the national news agency and the city government. The suspect later fell to his death from a department store building.

Police said the suspect was declared dead at a hospital after jumping from the building’s sixth floor, the Central News Agency reported.

The suspect, identified as a 27-year-old man named Chang Wen, threw a smoke grenade near an underground exit of the Taipei Main subway station, close to the city’s main train station, sending pedestrians running, according to local media reports.

He then headed north to a popular shopping district, where he stabbed multiple people on the first and fourth floors of the Eslite department store, primarily in the neck, the news agency said, citing police.

Friday’s attack took place during the city’s evening rush hour, BBC News reported, and videos shared on social media show people fleeing the scene in panic.

Local hospitals reported three deaths from the attacks. The city government said nine others were hospitalized, including one with serious injuries.

Taiwanese Premier Cho Jung-tai said one of the wounded was a pedestrian who fell to the ground after being attacked, and that person was already in cardiac arrest before being sent to a hospital. The smoke caused respiratory injuries to another person.

Cho said he had ordered increased security at metro and railway stations, as well as airports, in response to the attack, BBC News reported.

“We will ‌investigate [the suspect’s] background and associated relationships to understand his motives and ‍determine ‌if there are other connected factors,” Cho was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying. 

Chang failed to report for reserve military training in November 2024, and he was wanted for violating the law on mandatory military service, the news agency reported. He apparently didn’t report a change in household registration, resulting in nondelivery of his reserve military service summons, the news agency reported, citing a district prosecutors’ office.

The last major incident of this kind happened in 2014, BBC News reported, when a man killed four people on an underground train in Taipei. The perpetrator of that attack was executed two years later.