Police are awaiting a psychiatric report before deciding whether to press charges against a man who cut himself and tormented two snakes while waving a picture of a Hindu god in front of CentralWorld shopping complex in Bangkok on Wednesday.
Pol Col Thawatkiat Jindakuansanong, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police Bureau Division 5, said on Thursday that doctors at the Somdet Chaopraya Institute of Psychiatry were still examining Kanespisanuthep Chakrapobmahadecha.
Mr Kanespisanuthep, 42, stopped his car on Ratchadamri Road on Wednesday evening and emerged from the vehicle with a knife and two cobras in a sack. He made a small cut on his arm with the knife, scattered jasmine flowers on the road and then tormented the snakes, striking them and pouring water over them, before police grabbed him. An earlier report said he killed the snakes.
The man was taken to Lumpini police station. After he calmed down he was taken to Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital for treatment of his injury, and later to the institute for psychiatric assessment.
Police planned to charge him with dumping garbage in a public place, possessing a weapon in a public area, and obstructing traffic.
However, Pol Col Thawatkiat said Mr Kanespisanuthep would not be charged if psychiatrists decide he was not in full control of his actions.
Lumpini police chief Pol Col Kampol Rattanapratheep said that Mr Kanespisanuthep's relatives told police the man had been stressed out since his mother and younger sister died last year.
He was driving from Nakhon Sawan to meet his wife in Phra Pradaeng district of Samut Prakan and bought the cobras on the way at a roadside stall, according to police.