As a suspected drug dealer who escaped from police custody entered his 10th day on the run yesterday, the National Police Admin-istration (NPA) admitted that the keys to open its handcuffs and shackles are widely available.
"The bad news is that one key fits all," an NPA official said. "That means there is no unique lock for each handcuff or shackles. They all share the same format and same size of keys and these keys can be easily bought without needing any photo identification cards. That is a problem."
The NPA released a statement yesterday saying that the keys can easily be bought at ware-houses selling military and police equipment.
The statement said that the administration is planning to amend the Use of Police Weapons Act (警械使用條例) to increase the fines for such illegal sales.
In the meantime, the NPA is also planning to decommission police handcuffs and shackles and purchase new ones with unique locks so that escapes such as the one by Chen Fu-hsiang (
"We're planning to make the law stricter by increasing the fine," the officer said. "Article 13 of the Act currently states that cuff sales are illegal without authorization by the Ministry of the Interior. Violators will be fined ranging from NT$5,000 to NT$300,000.
"We're planning to increase that range, but the details have yet to be discussed. Also, it's time for us to consider purchasing new handcuffs and shackles."
Taipei City's Juvenile Police Branch yesterday made public a video tape which appeared to confirm that Chen was wearing handcuffs and shackles on Aug. 20 when he escaped. The video was recorded by the branch's closed-circuit security system.
Police said that just how Chen's cuffs were removed remains a mystery. They said that seven people arrested on suspicion of helping Chen escape have given conflicting accounts. Some said he removed them himself. Two of the seven were arrested early yesterday morning.
Also, according to their statement, police are looking for 15 more suspects in the case of Chen's escape.
"The video is proof that of-ficers did what they should have when they were taking him [Chen] to the crime scene," said Kao Shou-sun (高壽孫), the new chief of the Juvenile Police Branch.
The Ministry of Justice's Department of Corrections said that incidents of prison inmates unlocking themselves couldn't happen because police shackles and prison shackles are different. The police shackles can be opened by keys but the prison's shackles cannot.
Only the most dangerous prisoners are put in shackles.
"When the suspect is in police custody, he is not convicted yet so, other than handcuffing him, the police also need to shackle and unlock him very often. However, in prison, these inmates have been convicted already so there's no need for us to unlock them as often," an official from the Department of Corrections explained.
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