The National Police Agency (NPA) on Tuesday gave Songshan Precinct Chief Huang Jia-lu (黃嘉祿) a major demerit for an incident that saw Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) trapped in the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei Hotel on the night of Nov. 4.
Huang was punished after protesters managed to surround the hotel where the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait chairman and his fellow delegates were having dinner with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄). At the time, Huang decided not to increase the number of police officers even as the number of protesters began to grow.
The loss of control at the hotel resulted in Chen being trapped inside for more than six hours, the agency said.
The officer who was in charge when the police closed the Sunrise Records store, Beitou Precinct Chief Lee Han-ching (李漢卿), received an oral reprimand.
Part of the crowd protesting Chen’s visit had spilled over to the sidewalk in front of Sunrise Records. Some of the protesters started dancing to music from an album titled Songs of Taiwan, which was being played in the store.
Lee, followed by several other police officers, entered the store, after which the music was turned off and the store’s door closed halfway.
The crowd started to protest and during the standoff CD shelves and the store’s roller door were broken, while store manager Chang Pi (張碧) was slightly injured.
NPA Director-General Wang Cho-chun (王卓鈞) said he did not find Lee’s actions improper in any way, but said his handling of what happened afterward was questionable.
The police and Chang have offered different versions of the incident, disagreeing about why the music was turned off and who made the decision to close the store.
The store’s owner has accused Lee of lying and has asked for an investigation to establish whether police officers abused their power.
Wang told a press conference at the NPA that although he was generally satisfied with the performance of officers during Chen’s visit from Nov. 3 to Nov. 7, the police still needed to make improvements.
“We were simply doing our job to the best of our ability,” he said.
UNDER WATCH: Taiwan will have to establish a standardized nucleic acid testing method to identify the virus and monitor its spread, the CDC said The Langya henipavirus, which can be transmitted from animals to humans, has been discovered in China, with 35 human infections reported so far, Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said, adding that the nation would establish a nucleic acid testing method to identify the virus. A study titled “A Zoonotic Henipavirus in Febrile Patients in China” that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday said that a new henipavirus associated with a fever-causing human illness was identified in China. The study said an investigation identified 35 patients with acute infection of the Langya henipavirus in China’s Shandong
MISSILE PATHS: Certain information on the Chinese missile fire was not disclosed to maintain secrecy over military intelligence-gathering capabilities, the MND said Military experts yesterday speculated on the implication of the government’s tight-lipped response and the lack of air-raid sirens during the first day of China’s military drills the previous day. On Thursday, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched 11 Dongfeng-series ballistic missiles into waters north, east and south of Taiwan, a day after US House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s departure from the country, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. The Japanese Ministry of Defense said that China fired nine missiles toward Taiwan, including four that flew over Taiwan proper. However, China’s exhibition of force failed to terrorize the local populace, because
If any war were to break out between the US and China, one trigger might be the increasingly frequent fighter jet encounters near Taiwan. Almost every day, Taiwanese fighter pilots hop in their US-made F-16s to intercept Chinese warplanes screaming past their territory. The encounters probe the nation’s defenses and force the pilots on both sides to avoid mistakes that could lead to a crisis that spins out of control. “I didn’t know whether they would fire at me,” said retired colonel Mountain Wang, recounting a tense five-minute confrontation he had with Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) jets more than a decade
INCREASINGLY EMBOLDENED: China can no longer be dismissed as inexperienced, demonstrating an ability to coordinate land and sea missile systems, an expert said Beijing’s largest-ever exercises around Taiwan have offered essential clues into its plans for a grueling blockade in the event of an attack on Taiwan, and revealed an increasingly emboldened Chinese military, experts said. The visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi — second in line to the presidency — sparked outrage from Beijing, which launched vast military maneuvers around the nation, even at the risk of partially exposing its plans to the US and its Asian allies. Mobilizing fighter planes, helicopters and warships, the drills aim to simulate a blockade of Taiwan and include practicing an “attack on
RSS