A 40-year-old man surnamed Wu (吳) has been detained in Taichung after he charged into a temple office with a knife and took a female employee hostage on Thursday last week.
The man had a longstanding unresolved dispute with the Baoyuan Temple of Dharma Drum Mountain, police said.
During the standoff, he asked to speak to judicial authorities, they added.
Photo courtesy of the Taichung Police Department
The Taichung Police Department’s Sixth Precinct said in a statement that it received a report at about 7pm on Thursday last week of the incident on Shihcheng Road in Situn District (西屯).
When police arrived on the scene, Wu had broken into the temple’s office and was making threatening gestures with a fruit knife while holding a woman hostage, police said.
Police sealed all entrances and exits to the temple, evacuated the premises and surrounded Wu with officers carrying firearms, batons and pepper spray, they added.
The precinct's head of investigations Tu Chih-hung (涂志宏) then successfully disarmed the man and subdued him, police said.
As Wu would not drop the knife and the hostage was too scared to move, police initially pretended to comply with the man’s request, with Tu arranging a video call between Wu and a prosecutor from the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office, they said.
Tu — who was a national judo athlete — gradually moved closer as Wu was distracted by the call, using the opportunity to seize the knife and restrain him, before other officers stepped in to subdue the man and rescue the hostage, they said.
Officers arrested the man and took him for questioning, placing him in custody, they added.
Wu was later transferred to the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office on charges including unlawful detention and intimidation, police said.
Prosecutors requested his detention, which was approved by the court, they added.
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