Beijing attack victim's name revealed

BEIJING -- Todd Bachman of Lakeville, Minn., the father of former U.S. Olympic team and UCLA volleyball player Elisabeth Bachman, was the man killed in an attack by a knife-wielding assailant Saturday at a popular tourist attraction here, the U.S. Olympic Committee said in a statement.

Bachman's wife, Barbara, also was injured in the midday attack at the Drum Tower, about three miles from the Olympic Stadium. The USOC said she suffered life-threatening injuries and was undergoing emergency treatment at a local hospital.

The assailant, according to local law enforcement authorities, committed suicide by jumping from the second story of the site.

Elisabeth Bachman, who played for the U.S. women's volleyball team at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens and is married to current U.S. men's coach Hugh McCutcheon, was with her parents at the Drum Tower but was not attacked.

-- Randy Harvey

Photo: A security guard blocks access to the historic Drum Tower in Beijing, where Todd Bachman of Lakeville, Minn., was murdered Saturday. Credit: Mark Ralston / AFP/Getty Images

Comments

[nkb]

were they specifically targeted or was this random - all the news stories I read conveniently fail to reference this issue at all - and what exactly are the chinese and u.s. authories doing about this - all I see is that both "send their sympathies to the families" which is just pointless and completely useless - why isn't the u.s. g'ov't showing more outrage and why isn't the chinese gov't more emphatically embarrassed and horrified that their security seems to do nothing besides block criticism of their gov't rather than actually protecting visitors and athletes?

this is being handled terribly.

[MCI]

I agree with you nkb, but just "showing more outrage' and having the Chinese be "more embarrassed" wouldn't actually accomplish anything. What we should do is immediately end U.S. participation in the games, order all U.S. citizens out of China, shut down our embassies while simultaneously rounding up and imprisoning as many Chinese in the U.S. that we possibly can. We can use this murder as a viable and plausible pretext to launch a nuclear strike on on their military bases and major urban population centers. And if we're going to do that , we might as well lob a few at the Russians too. We can achieve justice for a slain American and wipe the world free of the communist blight at the same time!

P.S.
Isn't it weird that the Times only has 3 paragraphs about tis story?

[kc]

I still can't believe 08Pics' are being held in Beijing, I feel so sorry that i'm not suprised this attack happened.