Keelung Mayor Chang Tong-rong (張通榮) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was indicted yesterday for allegedly interfering with the police detention of a suspect, in connection with an incident in which he is said to have forced police officers to release a woman who had punched a police officer.
Keelung prosecutors indicted Chang with illegally freeing a detained person. If found guilty, he could face a prison term of between one and seven years.
The chief of the Anle (安樂) police station, Lin Hung-sheng (林煌盛), and a police officer surnamed Liao (廖) were also charged with illegally freeing a detained person, while a woman surnamed Liao was charged with interfering with the duties of a police officer.
Prosecutors said on the evening of Sept. 14, a female police officer surnamed Wang (王) saw a woman (Liao), allegedly drunk at the time, start her car and prepare to drive away. Wang asked the woman to step out of the car so she could run some sobriety checks. However, the woman shouted at Wang and allegedly punched her in her face.
Police then arrested the woman and brought her to the Anle station on charges of interfering with the duties of a police officer.
Police officers called Liao’s daughter to the police station, where she made telephone calls to KMT Keelung Councilor Shen Yi-chuan (沈義傳) and Chang.
Shen went to the police station and allegedly asked the officers to free Liao without charge, but the police refused.
Chang later went to the police station, and asked officers not to charge Liao with interfering with the duties of a police officer, but find some other ways to “punish” her.
After the officers refused his request, Chang started to hit a table with his hands and reportedly shouted at police officers: “You are great. You are so great. I will have [National Police Agency] Director-General Wang [Cho-chiun (王卓鈞)] come here to give you rewards, and then ask Director-General Wang to transfer you outside Keelung. I do not want to see honest and hard-working police officers like you remain unhappily in Keelung.”
“I am a person who bears resentments. You could do whatever you want to do. That is OK for me. I am removing you. Give me commissioner [Keelung City Police Department Commissioner Frank] Chiu [(邱豐光)],” Chang allegedly said.
Prosecutors said two police officers, Lin and Liao, finally accepted Chang’s request and removed the woman’s handcuffs and allowed her to leave the station without charge.
FATAL FIRE: The health department is trying to contact the inspector who visited the site of the illegal nursing home to ask why they did not advise follow-up checks The Taipei City Government yesterday said that a health department inspector last year had visited the site of a long-term care facility in Neihu District (內湖) after receiving a report questioning its status. A fire broke out at the facility on Tuesday afternoon, killing three people. The Taipei Fire Department said that it received a report about a fire on the first floor of a four-story residential building on Kangning Road Sec. 1 at 2:38pm on Tuesday, firefighters arrived at 2:43pm and the fire was put out by 3:07pm. The firefighters found three men in beds and rushed them to hospital for
Taipei City Councilor Wang Hao (王浩) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Monday called for security improvements to the MRT, as fare evasion has increased more than 13-fold on the metropolitan railway system over the past five years. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has spoken out against fare evasion and other contraventions of MRT regulations, but since he took office in 2015 the number of contraventions has more than doubled, Wang said, adding that there were 537 cases in 2015 compared with 959 last year. A video was posted to YouTube in June showing people how to evade paying a fare,
FEELING MISUNDERSTOOD: Media speculation has fueled confusion about the KMT’s reasons for skipping a Chinese forum and delaying an AIT meeting, party sources said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Sunday said that it is not seeking to improve relations with the US or China at the expense of the other, and that its relations with the countries would be topic-based. The party has faced questions over its foreign policy after it on Monday last week announced its withdrawal from the annual Straits Forum and delayed planned talks with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). The party has also taken a tough stance on the importation of US meat containing ractopamine, while also lambasting China for increasing its military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait. Following
Yuchi Township (魚池) fishers have appealed to the Nantou County Government for help in dealing with an invasive fish species in Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), where it has devastated the local ecosystem. Fishers at Sun Moon Lake have been using electrofishing in an attempt to eliminate the giant snakehead fish — found in Africa and Southeast Asia — but they have struggled to keep up with the growing population of the species, which breeds during September and October, the county government said on Monday. The county has contacted researchers at National Tsing Hua University, saying it hoped they could come up
RSS