A request for a bowl of noodles has saved a teenager from the hell of being bullied, a police officer said on Thursday, recounting a recent encounter that led to the discovery of the teen, who had been forced to have obscene words and images tattooed on his back.
The police officer, Fan Yu-yuan (范育源), said he was having a bowl of noodles at a stand in Taipei City’s Beitou District (北投) late on Wednesday night when he was approached by a teenager begging for food.
Fan said after he treated the boy to a bowl of noodles, and upon learning Fan is a -police -officer, the teen revealed to him that a friend of his, surnamed Lee (李), had been badly bullied by some other teens.
PHOTO: CHEN EN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The boy told Fan that the teens had forcefully tattooed bad words and figures — such as a middle finger, a swastika and a cross with wings — on Lee’s back and arms against his will.
Shocked by the story, Fan said he asked the boy to take him to Lee and determined the boy’s account was true.
Within the next 20 hours, Fan said the three alleged teen bullies, surnamed Liu (劉), Yu (游) and Tsai (蔡), were summoned by police for questioning.
Although the trio denied -bullying Lee, saying “it was Lee himself who asked to be tattooed,” they were referred to prosecutors on possible charges of intimidation and causing harm to others.
According to Lee, 19, Liu was a former schoolmate, one grade above him. Lee said Liu often bullied him when they were in school and he thought he would finally be able to get away from the nightmare of being bullied when Liu graduated.
Lee said late last month he ran into Liu in Beitou four years after their last encounter, and Liu, along with Yu and Tsai, forcefully took him to Liu’s residence in Kuandu (關渡), where the trio tattooed him.
After the story was covered in local media, police said they had received offers from members of the public to pay to have Lee’s tattoos removed.
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