Police in Wuhan searching for man who killed 7 people and jumped off a bridge

The suspect killed five members of a family and two others while fleeing

File Image: Police standing outside a school in Wuhan, China on 6 May 2020 (AFP via Getty Images)

A man in Wuhan, China, reportedly killed seven people on Monday before jumping off a bridge while fleeing from the police.

The suspect, surnamed Gao, 39, had killed five members of a family with a knife and then two other people while escaping, the police said in a statement on Tuesday. Amid police search and chase, the man jumped off a bridge on the Yangtze River.

According to the reports, the first five victims are a man surnamed Zhang, his wife, Zhang’s daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren. A third grandchild was breathing and sent to a hospital. Zhang was serving as the temporary secretary of the village’s Communist Part, and Gao was visiting him to resolve some business.

He killed a passerby and a driver to rob his car, according to media reports.

China generally has low rates of violent crimes. According to the World Bank data, citing the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s International Homicide Statistics database, there were 0.5 intentional homicides per 100,000 people in China in 2018, while the US recorded 4.9 murders for the same number of people.

Additional reporting from the wires