Bored Thai teens' were behind shooting
From:

Andrew Perrin

June 22, 2006


A YOUNG Brisbane nurse fighting for her life in a Bangkok hospital may have been the latest victim in a spate of shootings by drunken Thai teenagers that has left five people dead this year.

Thai police investigating the shooting of Springwood woman Pam Fitzpatrick, 26, said yesterday the shooting in the Thai tourist town of Kanchanaburi, 150km west of Bangkok, may have been a random act of violence committed by bored teenagers to show off.

Ms Fitzpatrick was gunned down in a tourist bar by unknown assailants riding a motorcycle on Monday.

She is now in a coma and on a life-support system. It is believed that if she survives she will be left a quadraplegic.

Yesterday her father, Kevin Fitzpatrick, said that his daughter remained in a critical condition.Mr Fitzpatrick flew from Brisbane to Bangkok on Tuesday night. Ms Fitzpatrick's sister, Jenny, who was with her at the time of the shooting, and her brother, are also at her bedside.

"There is a bullet lodged in her spinal column," Mr Fitzpatrick said.

"I'm here with my family to support her."

Australian Ambassador to Thailand William Patterson described the incident as deeply sad.

While the family yesterday tried to come to terms with the tragedy Thailand's national police chief ordered police in Kanchanaburi to leave no stone unturned in solving the case.

The incident has shed an unwelcome spotlight on the region's violent underbelly, and fears are held that it will deter Australian tourists from visiting one of Thailand's most popular tourist destinations, the site of the World War II Burma railway and bridge over the River Kwai.

Yesterday, chief of the investigation in Kanchanaburi, Police Colonel Vorapat Vadhanavisala, said all 10 officers in the area had been assigned to the case and reinforcements were expected to arrive this week. He said police had several leads they were pursuing.

Kanchanaburi has been rocked this year by a series of drive-by shootings on local bars. Since January more than 10 bars have been shot up, and five people have died, all of them Thai, the colonel said.

"The majority of the attacks are done by teenagers," he said. "These teenagers get loaded with alcohol and then think it is fun to go around and shoot people. They do it to show off."

However, police have not ruled out the possibility that the attack may have been organised by a competitor to scare customers away from the bar Ms Fitzpatrick was drinking at.

"A person can be hired to shoot up a bar for the price of a drink in Kanchanaburi," the colonel said. "It is not unusual."
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I heard that the guy who shot the Aussie girl was chatting her up.
She spurned his advances, he then went off.
He returned on a motorbike and then shot her.

Tony

Yet another case in Kanchanaburi where tourists upset the locals - and pay for it dearly.
Remember the police sergeant last year who went after the Brit (I think ) tourist and his girlfriend.

well it all seems to be about losing "face".
yes the case in k/buri with the policeman was two brits,BF and GF.

Fateful stop at Thai bar

Andrew Perrin in Kanchanaburi

June 23, 2006

A LAST-minute decision to have a late-night drink sealed the fate of Brisbane nurse Pamela Fitzpatrick, 26, who was shot just minutes after walking into a bar in this popular Thai tourist town on Monday.

The Australian Government confirmed yesterday that Ms Fitzpatrick died late Wednesday evening from injuries sustained in the attack, which had left her in a coma and on life support in a Bangkok hospital.

Australia's ambassador in Bangkok had spoken to senior Thai police to register the Australian Government's strong interest in the investigation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

In Kanchanaburi yesterday, local police assembled witnesses to be interviewed by one of Thailand's most senior homicide detectives, who arrived in the town from Bangkok to take over the investigation.

Forensic police returned to gather evidence.

In an interview with The Courier-Mail yesterday, a key witness told of the tragic moments before and after the shooting in the Up2U bar in the town's tourist district.

Penpuk Makajan, 24, a waitress, said she was sitting in the bar next door to Up2U and was within 3m of Ms Fitzpatrick when she was shot.

Ms Makajan said that just minutes before she had watched a group of five foreigners, including Ms Fitzpatrick and her sister Jenny, 20, walk past the bar in the early hours of Monday morning on their way to a nearby guesthouse where they were staying.

But in a decision that would prove fatal, after walking past Up2U, Ms Fitzpatrick and her friends turned around and walked back to the bar, the only one on the strip still open.

A motorbike then slowed almost to a stop on the road outside and one of the two men on the bike pulled out a black revolver and opened fire.

"He shouted 'hey' and then started firing," Ms Makajan said. "I watched as Pamela slowly stumbled and then fell to the ground." In the seconds after the attack, Ms Makajan said, Ms Fitzpatrick's sister Jenny started screaming and embraced her sister on the ground.

"She was saying 'Pamela, Pamela'," Ms Makajan said.

Ms Fitzpatrick had been shot in the back of her neck, shattering her spine.

She stopped breathing and her sister began CPR.

Her family, including father Kevin, Jenny and a brother remained by her bedside throughout the week.

The Australian Government is arranging for Ms Fitzpatrick's body to be flown to Brisbane.

That is so sad. I feel for her family and particularly her younger sister who was there.

Let's hope these guys are caught quickly. They deserve nothing less than a public keel hauling/flogging prior to execution.

i am sure they will be captured but sadly the low lifes probably ain't bothered.

The Australian nurse shot in the back of the neck during a driveby shooting in a Thai bar in Kanchanaburi has died in a Bangkok hospital.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed Pam Fitzpatrick had died of her injuries.

She was shot on Monday as she and her sister sat in a tourist bar in the town of Kanchanaburi, after they had just watched the Australia-Brazil World Cup football match.

"Thai police are investigating the shooting incident", the statement said.

"We were informed that she died at about 10 p.m. Wednesday at Samitivech Hospital," said Kanchanaburi Deputy Police Chief Voraphat Vattanavisarn.

According to Australian media accounts, two men on motorcycles opened fire on a crowd of revellers who had just watched the football match in the bar, hitting Ms Fitzpatrick, apparently at random. Two versions of the shooting have emerged - that the shooters had aimed at the bar owner, or that they were "bored teenagers" randomly shooting up the sometimes violent town.

Thai police believe the assailants, two teenagers on motorcycle, were aiming at the restaurant's owner who was sitting at the counter but shot Fitzpatrick by accident as she stood in the doorway.

The culprits have yet to be identified and Kanchanaburi police have yet to confirm the motive behind the shooting.

"We've questioned the owner and he claimed to have no big enemies although he admitted to arguing with a gang of teenagers he recently kicked out of his restaurant," said Voraphat.

The owner of a rival restaurant is another suspect.

"We're still investigating the case," added the deputy police chief.

Kanchanaburi's reputation as a safe spot has been tarnished by recent attacks on tourists.

Last year, a Kanchanburi court sentenced a local policeman to life imprisonment for murdering a British couple outside another of the town's many riverside restaurants.

Police Sergeant Somchai was convicted of murdering British nationals Adam Lloyd, 25, and Vanessa Arscott, 24, on September 9, 2004.

A Kanchanaburi appeal court on Wednesday turned down Somchai's lawyer's request to appeal the sentence. Somchai's failure to appear in court to make the appeal raised suspicions that the decorated policeman has already been secretly freed, although authorities denied the rumour.

Somchai was found guilty of shooting Lloyd on the night of September 9, 2004, and then running over Arscott with his car as she attempted to escape. He finished Arscott off with his pistol.

Ironically, he had played a key role in solving the rape and brutal murder of an Irish tourist by an errant monk at a hilltop Buddhist temple in Kanchanaburi about a decade ago.

Ms Fitzpatrick's father, Kevin, said his daughter's spinal cord had been damaged in the shooting.

Ms Fitzpatrick had arrived in Thailand at the weekend with her sister, Jenny, and they were visiting Kanchanaburi and the River Kwai tourist attractions.
(Bangkok post.)

I am very sorry for the family of the latest victim.

The errant monk, the policeman, the teenagers on motorcycles...the Kanchanaburi story with respect to tourists gets worse at every turn.