Vigil to Be Held After Man with Knife Stabs Six Children at Kids' Birthday Party
A man with a knife targeted a children’s birthday party in an attack that left nine people injured, six of them children, police said Sunday.
Tommy Kinner, 30, allegedly stormed into the 3-year-old child’s party in an apartment complex at about 6.45 p.m. Saturday and knifed three adults who tried to bar his way, said police in Boise, Idaho.
Kinner did not appear to know the victims, and had been living in a nearby apartment complex after being evicted from the apartments where the stabbings took place, said police. The suspect has served prison time for violent crimes and substance abuse, said Boise Police Chief William Bones.
“Due to his behavior, he had been asked to leave,” Bones said at a news conference Sunday, as cited by the Associated Press. “He returned last night to exact vengeance, not just on those who he had been with—as they were not at the apartment—but any target that was available.”
A candlelit vigil will be held for those injured at 6 p.m. Monday on the steps of Boise’s City Hall, the Associated Press reported. The International Rescue Committee and the Agency for New Americans were among the charities launching fundraising campaigns to aid the victims.
All of the victims were asylum seekers, from countries including Iraq, Syria and Ethiopia. The 3-year-old whose birthday was being celebrated was seriously injured by the attacker, and five other children, aged 12, 8, 6 and two 4-year-olds, were also injured.
One of the children injured was flown 200 miles to a hospital in Salt Lake City for an emergency treatment, with refugee groups paying for family to be flown to the victim’s bedside.
The wounded are expected to survive, though Bones said “some of the victims will be forever scarred by their injuries."
“This was an attack against those who are most vulnerable: our children,” he told reporters. “It’s untenable, unconscionable and it’s pure evil in my mind.”
