Former National Police Adminis-tration (NPA) deputy director-general Shieh Ing-dan (謝銀黨) was promoted yesterday to NPA director-general after 33 years of service in the force.
The new director-general is scheduled to take his oath at 1:30pm today.
Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) announced Shieh's appointment as NPA director-general yesterday. After the announcement, Shieh said that solving the attempted assassination of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) would be his office's top priority.
"In addition to providing all necessary assistance to investigators, I will also do my best to help them avoid potential political pressure," Shieh said.
"To solve the case as soon as possible is my priority," he said.
After a decades-long career as a low-profile police officer, Shieh became a focus of attention when he joined the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nearly two years ago.
Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) Commissioner Hou You-yi (
Shieh, a native of Changhua County, was born on Sept. 28, 1949.
He enrolled in the Department of Administrative Management at the Central Police University in 1967. After graduation, he worked as a junior detective in the Nantou County Police Department's Criminal Investigation Corps, remaining there until 1980.
Although he majored in administrative management in college, Shieh worked in criminal investigation for most of his time in the police force.
In 1981, he became a lieutenant in the Taichung City Police Department's Criminal Investigation Corps and was promoted to captain in 1982. In 1985, he became precinct director in the department.
He joined the CIB as a lieutenant in 1986 and stayed there until he became captain only one year after that. He was then transferred to the Taipei City Police Department's Criminal Investigation Corps as corps chief before leaving for Ilan in 1989.
Shieh held the post of commissioner at the Ilan County Police Department for four years before returning to Taipei.
When Shieh was assigned to Ilan, Premier Yu Shyi-kun was serving as Ilan County Commissioner. Initially, Yu did not approve Shieh's transfer because at the time the county was in dispute with the Cabinet over selecting its own police chief. Yu eventually accepted Shieh in recognition of his sincere attitude and hard work.
"For me it was just part of the challenges of the job," Shieh said.
He first handled administration-related work in 1993 when he was appointed Administration Section chief at the NPA, where he stayed until 1995.
Shieh then took over the commissioner's post at the Taoyuan County Police Department, one of the positions regarded as a must for a prospective NPA director-general.
Between 1996 and 1997, Shieh worked for the Taiwan Provincial Government and was a deputy head of that body's police department, but in the same year he was made a chief inspector at the NPA.
Shieh had been a top police inspector for only eight months when he became commissioner of the Kaohsiung City Police Department, also regarded as a mandatory position for an NPA director-general to have held. He then took over the NPA deputy director-general's office after four years of service in Kaohsiung.
Shieh has been a low-profile but friendly officer at the NPA since taking over as the deputy director-general in February 2001.
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