The Taipei City government yesterday announced it is taking disciplinary action against a total of seven police officials and officers who were involved in efforts to solve a recent robbery at the home of a wealthy family on Yangmingshan, after which four Shihlin youths were detained without evidence.
The youths were later released after DNA evidence contradicted oral testimony provided by the suspects, and others have since been arrested.
Taipei City Deputy Mayor Ou Chin-der (
FILE PHOTO
Shihlin precinct deputy chief Tsai Wan-lai (
The Director of Taipei City Police Headquarters, Wang Jinn-wang (
Ou said he believed the disciplinary action was necessary.
"The Shihlin police precinct apparently handled the case inappropriately, affecting the rights and interests of city residents and sabotaging the image of the city's police as a whole," he said.
Ou said Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Ou added that the mayor has demanded that city police precincts and stations already equipped with interrogation rooms should complete installation of surveillance cameras within three months, so procedure during police questioning can be recorded.
Stations without such facilities, Ou said, should complete equipment installation by the end of the year.
As for why superior officers received harsher punishment than those who actually handled the case, Ou said it was based on the principle of "rewards from the bottom up, discipline from the top down."
The robbery took place on March 29, in which NT$1.3 million in goods were stolen from the home of a prominent businesswoman, Wu Ju-yueh (
Four neighborhood youths who lived near Wu's house were later detained by Shihlin precinct police.
During their four days of police detention, the four gave conflicting confessions, which they later retracted.
All four were subsequently set free when police found that evidence they had collected from the scene could not be pinned on the suspects.
Several days later, after pinpointing the signal from a cellular phone stolen during the robbery, police discovered evidence linking other suspects to the crime scene, and subsequently made more arrests, this time announcing that they had cracked the case.
Officers from the precinct publicly apologized to the youth's families on April 13, but the families said a verbal apology failed to solve the problem of abuse in custody and of forced confessions.
They asked the Examination Yuan to investigate the precinct to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.
The lawyer for the four youths has demanded national compensation and a complete overhaul of the judicial system, while city councilors have requested the removal from office of the Shihlin precinct chief.
They have also demanded that the city government offer psychological counselling to the youths who were falsely detained.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
‘COMMITTED TO DETERRENCE’: Washington would stand by its allies, but it can only help as much as countries help themselves, Raymond Greene said The US is committed to deterrence in the first island chain, but it should not bear the burden alone, as “freedom is not free,” American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene said in a speech at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s “Strengthening Resilience: Defense as the Engine of Development” seminar in Taipei yesterday. In the speech, titled “Investing Together and a Secure and Prosperous Future,” Greene highlighted the contributions of US President Donald Trump’s administration to Taiwan’s defense efforts, including the establishment of supply chains for drones and autonomous systems, offers of security assistance and the expansion of
RSS