At least 10 top Ilan County police officials have been punished because of a fellow officer's alleged robbery attempt, National Policy Agency (NPA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Hsiu-neng (
Suao detective Hung I-feng (
Local media reports said that a man wearing a motorcycle helmet held a knife to an association employee's throat while distributing plastic handcuffs to others in the office and ordering them to handcuff themselves.
The man then stuffed more than NT$1 million (US$30,717) into a bag. But the man never made it out the door -- an employee had secretly alerted the police, who showed up before the thief could flee, the Liberty Times(the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) reported yesterday.
According to the Liberty Times, Hong, 41, is heavily in debt. The China Times reported that Hung specialized in investigating robbery cases.
Shieh said that Hung was fired and a number of officials in the Suao Police Department and the Ilan County Police Bureau have been demoted.
Suao Police Department Director Lin Ming-shih (林明石) was among those demoted, an agency press release said yesterday. It said he would be downgraded to "executive officer."
Discipline will be enforced at all levels in the Ilan County Police Bureau, the release said.
"Although the case was solved quickly, we're extremely distressed," Shieh said. "Such cases will result in more stiff and immediate punishments," he said.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus, however, demanded yesterday that Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Su urged the public not to negate the efforts made by the police to maintain public order because of an "isolated incident."
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