The National Police Agency yesterday said it would start recruiting more Aborigines as police officers to diversify the force and make it more efficient.
“The number of Aborigine recruits will increase by about 2 percent,” an agency spokesman said yesterday.
The policy was proposed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kung Wen-chi (孔文吉), himself an Aborigine, and authorized by the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Examination and the Ministry of Education in June.
In addition, Aborigines who take the entrance exam at the Central Police University will obtain extra credits equal to 3.75 percent of their original credits.
The extra credits will be awarded if an Aborigine candidate passes the “certificate of indigenous culture and language” exam, the agency said.
Similar measures will apply to Aborigines seeking to enter the Taiwan Police College.
The agency said the new policy would become effective next year.
Meanwhile, three police officers were released on bail yesterday after being detained on allegations of corruption.
Taipei City Police Department Traffic Corps officer Chen Jui-tao (陳瑞韜), Wenshan First Precinct Traffic Corps sergeant Wang Cheng-hsin (王正信) and Wenshan Second Precinct patrol unit officer Yang Shao-fu (楊少輔) were released on bail ranging from NT$50,000 to NT$100,000, Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Wang Wen-te (王文德) said.
Taipei City Traffic Corps Captain Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧) offered to resign over the case, but that request has yet to be approved.
“The three officers will be charged with corruption. They have also had restrictions placed on their movements,” Wang said.
The trio were arrested on Monday after prosecutors ruled they had accepted bribes from four taxi cab companies in Taipei over a period of two years, in return for help with vehicle inspections by the Traffic Corps.
Wang said the reputation of a taxi company could suffer if it failed an inspection.
Over the past two years, all four companies passed all their inspections.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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