Northbound train passengers panicked yesterday and called the police when they saw a fellow passenger shaking a 17cm knife.
When police officers boarded the train and apprehended her, they discovered that she had merely been washing a fruit knife she had used to cut up a mango.
The incident follows the fatal stabbings on the Taipei MRT system last month, in which four people were killed and 24 injured. It also occurred as the Taiwan Railways Administration, the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp and the police were preparing to stage emergency drills at Banciao (板橋) Railway Station to respond to situations like the Taipei attacks.
According to railway police, the 60-year-old woman, surnamed Fang (方), cut up the mango with a knife she had brought with her while she was waiting to board a train to Keelung at Taoyuan Railway Station.
After boarding the train, she went to rinse the knife in the bathroom and, as she shook it to remove excess water, other passengers noticed and panicked.
One of the commuters called the police and said that someone in cabin No. 7 was carrying a knife. Officers boarded the train when it arrived at Yingge (鶯歌) Station and apprehended Fang.
When they asked her about the “weapon,” she voluntarily handed the 17cm-blade over.
The police officers escorted her off the train at Shanjia (山佳) Station, were she was quickly surrounded by police officers stationed in Shanjia and railway police from Shulin (樹林) Station.
Fang told the railway police that she had no idea what she had done to merit such special attention, except eat a mango. She phoned her boss and asked for the day off, fearing that she could lose her job if her boss found out about the incident.
The police let Fang go after determining that she harbored no criminal intent.
Fang’s ordeal was just the latest in a string of false alarms reported since the stabbings on May 21.
Previously, a male passenger in an army uniform carrying a BB gun was arrested after stepping off a MRT train, while in another incident, a 24-year-old autistic man mistaken for a would-be attacker was found to be carrying only a calculator.
Chen Chun-ying (陳俊鷹), superintendent at Bali Psychiatric Center in New Taipei City, attributed the cases to the normal oversensitiveness some people develop after events like the stabbings.
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