Criminal Investigation Bureau Deputy Commissioner Chen Yi-feng (陳逸峰) yesterday tried to defend his fellow police officers in the face of widespread public complaints over the failure to locate and arrest fugitive Chan Hsi-ming (張錫銘) after a series of gunbattles on Monday.
"We will make sure that mistakes will not happen again in the future. However, everybody did their best during the combat with the gang members on Monday," Chen said.
Chen said that Monday's raid on a farm in Taliao, Kaohsiung County was a well-organized action by the police and officers from different units worked well together. Chang, however, is tricky and very careful, making the police's mission difficult, he said.
Reports in the local Chinese-language media criticized the police for not using helicopters from their aviation department during the raid or during Chang's escape.
Chen said the decision was made not to use the helicopters because the gang was known to possess rifles.
"They [Chang and his gang] have M-16s and AK-47s. Both kinds of guns are capable of shooting down a helicopter if the chopper's height is below 300m," Chen said.
Some police officers apparently wanted to wait until dawn on Tuesday to raid the house where the gangsters were hiding. Chen said a delay was next to impossible.
"Chang is a sensitive person. He usually relocates every two hours or so. If we waited, we might have lost his whereabouts again so we had to strike," he said.
Chen also criticized the media, saying all the reporters and photographers wandering around the scene of the raid had prevented police officers from firing at will during the gunbattle with Chang's gang.
"We did not restrict reporters' ability to do their jobs but their wandering around did cause concerns that we might accidentally injure innocent people during the shootout," Chen said. "However, we should have se-cured the area anyway."
The bureau has withdrawn its SWAT team from the search for Chang and fellow fugitive Chen Chin-hsiung (陳進雄) but local police officers from Tainan and Chiayi counties are continuing to look for the pair in the Alishan area.
As of press time yesterday, the pair remained at large.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard