Taipei police yesterday arrested and then released a man who sparked panic after he boarded an MRT at Zhongshan Station with a knife sticking out of his breast pocket.
The Taipei Police Department’s Datong Precinct said it received a call at 12:15am about the issue and immediately dispatched officers to the scene.
Passengers had used the intercom to report the man to the train’s driver after he boarded a subway car with a fruit knife in his breast pocket, with the handle visible.
Photo: Taipei Times
The train driver relayed that information to the station manager and security personnel, who boarded the train and asked the man, surnamed Song, to come to the station’s service counter.
Responding police officers searched Song and found a second fruit knife, the precinct said.
Song said he was returning to his home in Beitou District (北投) after meeting with friends near Taipei 101 Station, police said.
The 31-year-old said he was carrying the knives for self-protection and to peel fruit, police said.
After questioning Song, police determined that he had not brandished the knife or tried to harm anyone and released him.
Song was referred to the Taipei District Court to be fined for carrying a hazardous item without good reason, in accordance with Article 63 of the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), police said.
Song’s actions came during a time of intensified MRT security, after a 27-year-old man killed three people in a knife attack at Taipei Main Station and near Zhongshan MRT Station in December last year.
The suspect in the metro rampage died after falling from the roof of a nearby department store.
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