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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > August > 09
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Blog: Reactions to a Murdered American
With head coach Hugh McCutcheon gone to take care of his family after his father-in-law was murdered and his mother-in-law severely injured in a knife attack Saturday in Beijing, the U.S men’s Olympic volleyball team banded together as best it could Sunday and debuted against Venezuela at Capital Gymnasium.
Todd Bachman was killed by a 47-year-old Chinese man while touring the 13th Century Drum Tower early Saturday afternoon. His wife, Barbara, suffered life-threatening injuries and underwent eight hours of surgery. According to U.S. press attache Darryl Seibel, she is in critical but stable condition at Peking University Medical College Hospital. The Chinese woman giving the Bachmans their tour was severely injured, as well, and remains hospitalized.
Elisabeth “Wiz” Bachman McCutcheon — a member of the 2004 U.S. women’s Olympic team — was with her parents when they were attacked, but was unharmed.
The assailant — Tang Yongming — then jumped to his death from the 130-foot second-floor balcony of the ancient tower.
McCutcheon was practicing with his team at Beijing Normal when he got word of the attack and left immediately. He did talk to his players by speaker phone once they returned to the Athletes’ Village Saturday night.
According to Rob Browning, team leader of the men’s volleyball team, McCutcheon is not sure if or when he will be able to return to coach the team.
Before Sunday’s competition, Browning read a brief statement to the few media at the game. He expressed the team’s support of the McCutcheon and Bachman families, but admitted, “We are absolutely devastated by what has occurred, for their loss and for everything they are going through. … We are a family and we will get through this as a family.”
Browning said postponing the Venezuelan match was never considered.
Saturday night — many members of the U.S. women’s team, several of them Wiz’s former teammates — were in tears before, during and after their Olympic opener against Japan, which they won, 3-1.
Wiz’s 62-year-old father — chief executive officer for Bachman’s, Inc., a home-and-garden center based in Minneapolis — was well known to many of the women’s players.
“God, we all love Wiz,” a tearful Logan Tom told reporters after the match. “It’s hard to put it in words. That’s not something that’s supposed to happen.”
She then began to cry and excused herself.
In the lead-up to the Games, Chinese officials had put extreme security measures in place to quell any problems. A 100,000-strong security force plus countless volunteer guards have been deployed to protect against any trouble. Concerns were aimed mainly at protest groups or terrorist attempts, not street crime, which is rare here compared to Dayton and other U.S. cities.
Chinese are not permitted to own guns and punishments of crime against foreign visitors are more severe than they are for transgressions against locals.
After the attack, police blocked off streets leading to the Drum Tower, cordoning off the area with yellow crime scene tape.
Tang is said to have been a factory worker from the eastern city of Hangzhou and had no criminal record. He divorced and moved out of his family home in 2006 and arrived in Beijing on August 1 this year. No motive for the attack was known.
“For all intents, it appears to be a random attack by a deranged man,” Jim Easton, an American member of the International Olympic Committee, told The Associated Press. “The only thing we’ve heard is they were not identifiable except for a small volleyball pin which would probably be invisible to a guy.
“Here it is supposed to be a great time of happiness and peace and all that. That’s what we work hard for, then for one person to be able to put a dark cloud on that.”
Embassy spokeswoman Susan Stevenson said: “We don’t believe this was targeted at American citizens, and we don’t believe this has anything to do with the Olympics.”
An initial investigations by Interpol found nothing indicating the murder was linked to terrorism or organized crime.
“So far, our database check and preliminary analysis suggest that today’s murder-suicide was an isolated, though brutal, murder of one person and assault on two others,” said Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.
In a statement released by the U.S. Olympic Committee, its chairman, Peter Ueberroth, spoke for the entire American contingent here when he said:
“It is impossible to describe the depth of our sadness and shock in this tragic hour. Our delegation comes to the games as a family, and when one member of our family suffers a loss, we all grieve with them.”
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