Keelung prosecutors yesterday launched an investigation into Keelung Mayor Chang Tong-rong (張通榮) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who is alleged to have forced police officers to free a woman who had punched a police officer.
Local media said that on Friday evening, a female police officer surnamed Wang (王) saw a drunk woman surnamed Liao (廖) start her car and prepare to drive off. Wang asked Liao to exit the car so that she could run some sobriety checks, news reports said.
However, Liao shouted at Wang and punched her in her face.
Photo: Lu Hsien-hsiu, Taipei Times
Reports said police then arrested Liao and brought her in on charges of interfering with the duties of a police officer.
Reports have said Liao placed a phone call from the police station to Keelung Councilor Shen Yi-chuan (沈義傳) of the KMT. Shen went to the police station and requested that they free Liao without charge, but the police refused.
Reports said Shen then called Chang and asked him to handle the matter. Chang went to the police station with a box of fruit and apologized for Liao and presented the police officers with the fruit as a gift.
Reports said that with Chang continuing to urge the release of Liao, police officers finally removed her handcuffs and had Shen accompany her out of the police station without charge.
Reports said that both Chang and Shen may have violated regulations on freeing a detained person as set down in the Criminal Code.
Keelung prosecutors yesterday went to the police station to interview Wang and other police officers. Liao was also summoned for questioning.
Chang said that his actions were a simple case of providing a service to voters while adding that because the police insisted on charging Liao, he needed to press the issue.
“The councilor is there, the mayor is there, too. We ask you for help. If you continue to say no, it is not good. If people are charged with trivial things, society would be a mess,” Chang said he told police officers at the sation.
Chang added that the police officers accepted his request and then allowed Liao to leave after she had bowed and apologized to Wang.
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
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,