As crime runs rampant in Taichung City, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) has said that “it is as if each bullet has been hitting me.” Deteriorating law and order, however, is not the biggest blow to Hu: Four senior police officers were present at the scene of Friday’s killing of gang leader Weng Chi-nan (翁奇楠), and during the three minutes and five seconds it took the killer to commit his crime, they hid under a table. Afterward, they did not behave like hardened police officers, but instead rushed to flee the scene. With the revelation of these facts four days later, Hu’s image is in desperate need of resuscitation.
Taichung City is the consumer center of central Taiwan, with a large flow of people. The police force is insufficient and law and order has never been very strong. During Hu’s eight years as mayor, civic order in the city has been ranked worst in Taiwan in seven annual surveys — the exception was last year, when it was ranked second-worst. On three occasions, twice under Hu’s leadership, the city has had to request police reinforcements from Taipei. This kind of clean-up is completely useless. If the police are in bed with organized crime, criminals will be informed ahead of each clean-up campaign. When the campaign is over and police have arrested a few petty criminals for appearances’ sake, crime goes on as before. This is not the way to maintain law and order.
There is crime in any city, and criminal gangs will always fight to protect their interests. This is a matter of law and order, and although Hu will have to take some of the blame, he is not responsible for all of it. However, when four police officers are at the scene of such a crime, this raises questions of cooperation between police and gangs. Hu must launch a thorough investigation into the matter and offer a clear public explanation. The police officers — who fled instead of doing their jobs by attempting to stop the murderer and support the investigation — must be punished.
When Hu later heard that police had been present at the scene, Taichung City Police Commissioner Hu Mu-yuan (胡木源) somehow managed to come up with some kind of explanation that Jason Hu found satisfactory. During an interpellation in the city council, the mayor even said he would support the police commissioner “to the end.” Is Jason Hu a complete muddle-head or is there something else going on? To say something like this after almost nine years in charge of the city and with the situation deteriorating like this raises serious questions about his leadership abilities.
With deteriorating civic order comes corruption, degeneration and incompetence, all serious political issues. Taichung was considered the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) strongest card in the year-end special municipality elections, but the recent shooting is very likely to lead to political disaster for Hu as his reputation takes a serius nosedive, jeopardizing his chances of winning the Greater Taichung election. The KMT has realized the seriousness of the situation and the government has now sent the National Police Agency’s elite Wei-an Special Police Commando to the city in the hope that the unit will be able to establish law and order and stop Hu’s support from slipping away.
The Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate for Greater Taichung mayor, Su Chia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), has served as minister of the interior with responsibility for national law and order.
He was originally seen as cannon fodder in the year-end elections, but now that Jason Hu’s Achilles’ heel has been exposed, the elections are suddenly looking interesting again.
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