Kaohsiung police yesterday rejected accusations of excessive use of force after a confrontation between two officers and three men in a parked car led to a barrage of gunfire and left one man dying from a gunshot to the chest.
A search of the vehicle afterwards turned up a small cache of guns, weapons and drugs, and the driver and other passenger were arrested.
Kaohsiung police special brigade members Shih Chien-an (施建安) and Yu Ho-chien (余和謙) said they were checking on an illegally parked car near the intersection of Dashun Road and Dingshan Street in Sanmin District (三民) at about 3:30am when a man in the backseat opened the door while holding what turned out to be a modified Taurus pistol and appeared to fire the gun.
Photo: CNA
Shih said he and Yu fired back in self-defense and fired several warning shots into the air.
They also called for reinforcement and an ambulance, the Kaohsiung City Police Department said in a statement.
The man who was shot was identified by police officials as Chen Chi-an (陳祈安), 43.
Photo copied by Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
Ambulance crew administered CPR on him at the scene, but he was pronounced dead after being taken to a local hospital.
The other men were identified as Chen Yi-cheng (陳羿丞) and Hung Yi-yuan (洪億原), both 41.
Police said Chen Chi-an had a Taurus pistol with 10 bullets, but the gun had jammed with a bullet inside.
“We were lucky the main suspect did not get off his first shot,” Shih said.
“I started police work five years ago, but this is the first time I have fired my weapon,” Shih said. “It was a life or death situation and we felt that we might get shot... We were really surprised when other officers found a small arsenal with lots of ammunition inside the car.”
A total of 22 gunshots were fired.
He and police officials rejected criticism that excessive force had been used, saying that they fired warning shots and had also aimed at the car to avoid casualties.
“At the start, we had no idea how many weapons they had. We did not know how dangerous it was until the man in the backseat took aim at us with his pistol... We fired back in self-defense, but we did so by firing several rounds into the air as a warning, trying to get all three suspects out of the car. We are glad that when it was all over all the police officers were safe,” Shih said.
“A search of the vehicle recovered two Colt RM22401 sub-machine guns, one of them with a bipod mount; one modified Glock pistol; one modified Mauser HSc Mod. 91 handgun; two modified Taurus pistols; one hand grenade and 305 rounds of ammunition, 97 of which were hollow-point expanding bullets,” the department said in the statement.
Five packets of amphetamine weighing a total of 127.8g, 0.4g of powder believed to be heroin, a drug pipe, tools for modifying firearms and NT$495,000 was found in the car, it said.
Chen Chi-an had convictions for robberies, possession of illegal firearms and drug-related offenses, and was involved in a shooting incident in 2004, while Chen Yi-cheng (陳羿丞) and Hung have records for possession of illegal drugs, police said.
Chen Yi-cheng (陳羿丞) and Hung allegedly told police that the guns and ammunition belonged to Chen Chi-an, and that they had been heading to a drug rehabilitation clinic in Nantou County.
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