Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said he is exploring the possibility of replacing police stations by increasing the city’s “mobile police stations,” whose operation would resemble that of an “aircraft carrier.”
Ko made the remark in response to questions during a meeting on Friday to discuss city policies with students that the mobile police stations — five minivans equipped with computers and communication devices — had demonstrated poor efficiency.
He said that some of these vehicles are parked in front of former police stations in response to complaints about the city government’s abolition of police stations.
He was referring to two vehicles in Datong District (大同) deployed to replace two police stations.
Ko said the city government is assessing the viability of replacing the city’s 94 existing police stations with police vans and retaining only the 12 precincts, adding that mobile police stations could resemble a “fleet” if improved.
“Each mobile police station would be grouped with two to four mounted police officers to increase mobility,” he said.
The mobile police stations are undergoing a trial run and a review would be conducted in January next year, Ko said.
Taipei Police Department division chief Huang Yi-san (黃益三) said the five mobile police stations went on duty on July 1 and together received 21 reports from Taipei residents last month.
He conceded that aside from giving directions and patrolling, the mobile police stations had been idle most of the time.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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