SURAT THANI — Two police officers were injured in accidental shootings Wednesday while trying to arrest a machete-wielding Myanmar man who went on a violent rampage after becoming obsessed with meditation CDs.
The two officers went to a one-storey home in tambon Barng Madua of Phunphin district at 1pm after a report that a 31-year-old Myanmar worker, identified only as Sui, was trying to attack his wife and neighbours after ransacking the house.
When Pol Sen Sgt Maj Surachet Sapharnthong, chief of Barng Madua police station’s crime suppression unit, and a duty officer pulled up outside, Mr Sui charged them with a machete, forcing them to retreat, witnesses said.
Sen Sgt Maj Surachet fell and his gun accidentally discharged a bullet into his left foot. Mr Sui leapt at him and was about to hack him with the machete, but the officer fired at his leg, wounding him and driving him back.
Pol Maj Amorn Chaisilp, an investigation inspector who arrived at the scene to back up the officers, narrowly escaped serious injury when the bullet fired by Snr Sgt Maj Surachet grazed his torso.
The officers then managed to subdue Mr Sui and arrest him.
They said Mr Sui lived with his wife in the house and both worked at a nearby rubber plantation. The house belongs to their employer who alerted police about the frenzied attack.
Mr Sui was described by his wife and employer as a friendly man who did not drink alcohol and was not involved with any illicit drugs.
Before he went on the rampage, he recently bought CDs which contain guidelines and lessons about dhamma practice and meditation. He was obsessed with watching the CDs and tried to persuade other people to join him, but no one was interested.
Police charged him with attempted murder and resisting arrest.