In a bid to investigate alleged links between Taichung police and local gangsters, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) yesterday said he had asked police to go through surveillance camera tapes from the crime scene where a suspected gang leader was gunned down on Friday last week.
“We have just retrieved video clips for the last seven days, and they have been transferred to prosecutors for investigation,” said Hu, who has come under intense pressure amid public outrage over the presence of four police officers at the scene of the shooting. They were reportedly playing mahjong and hid under a table when Weng Chi-nan (翁奇楠) was shot.
Hu said he understood that police officers maintain “certain relations with gangsters” to further investigations, but whether police officers have been too close to gang members needed to be assessed.
Taichung police chief Hu Mu-yuan (胡木源) reportedly kept him in the dark for five days after investigators uncovered the presence of the four officers at the scene of the shooting and the police chief resigned on Thursday night. His replacement is Chiu Feng-kuang (邱豐光), who was deputy head of the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau.
Some critics have voiced suspicions that Jason Hu was in the know and that Hu Mu-yuan was a mere scapegoat.
Jason Hu yesterday said the reason he approved Hu Mu-yuan’s resignation was because the police report on the shooting was unclear.
“A lot of questions were left unanswered. This report did not convince me. How is it supposed to convince Taichung residents?” he said.
Meanwhile, a police officer from Tainan County’s Yujing Precinct was detained yesterday for alleged links to gangsters and suspected criminal activities.
“We have been investigating Lin Mao-hsiung [林茂雄] for a while because of his complicated relationship with gang members,” Tainan County Police Department Chief Inspector Wang Chi-hsing (王啟興) said.
“The internal affairs department is now investigating and trying to establish if more officers are involved,” Wang said.
Shen Bao-chien (沈堡墘), lieutenant of the county’s Shiuejia Precinct’s investigation team, was also implicated but prosecutors released him without bail.
Additional reporting by CNA and staff writer
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