In response to two major crimes that occurred on Wednesday ? a shooting in Taichung and a case of arson in Keelung -- the National Police Administration announced yesterday that it was to begin a four-day crackdown on gangsters, especially targeting gangsters who possess illegal weapons.
"Two major crimes happened on the same day. It is necessary for us [police] to do something," a press release from the administration said.
"The crackdown will be launched at 6pm on Thursday and will last for four days. Gangsters with illegal firearms will be our priority targets," the statement said.
The administration requested that the public be on the lookout for arsonists because cases of arson have been on the increase lately.
In the aftermath of Wednesday's shooting in Taichung City, Sergeant Yeh Hsi-tsai (
"When he arrived at the hospital, he did not have a pulse," said Wang You-chi (
"His condition for the next three to five days is likely to remain critical. I am sorry to say that even if he survives, it is quite possible that he'll be left in a vegetative state."
According to Wang, Yeh was shot in the face. A bullet entered near his nose on the right side of his face and exited through his left ear.
Though the bullet did not pass through his brain, the heat of the bullet damaged his brainstem.
Meanwhile, police arrested another suspect in the shootout -- Wu Su-yu (
Wu is said to have been the girlfriend of Shih An-ming (
Shih was shot dead after he opened fire on Lin while Lin was attempting to negotiate with him.
Another suspect, Huang Chun-chieh (
The shootout began when police arrived at a warehouse where a ransom that the group had demanded was supposed to have been paid. The shooting began when police attempted to arrest two of the group's members.
After the shooting, Huang Yung-hsing (
"I will help Lee's family financially as much as I can. I am grateful for what officers did for me, and I am sorry for their families," Huang said.
The case of arson occurred Wednesday evening, when a five-storey building on Yi-yi Road in Keelung burst into flames. The fire took the lives of three males and two females, and the police later announced that it had been a case of arson.
Police say that the building housed a KTV on the second floor and a nightclub on the third floor. The building's fourth and fifth floors were vacant.
Seventeen people escaped from the building during the fire. All the victims were customers of the KTV or the nightclub.
According to Keelung Chief Prosecutor Lai Cheng-sheng (
Police say that witnesses' testimony suggests that he might be the arsonist, and that video footage from a nearby convenience store supports that theory.
"A waitress told us that her husband had been upset about her working at the KTV, but that she had to work there anyway to make money," Lai said.
"We are trying to find this man. He has been missing for days," Lai said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching