The incidence of violent crime in New Taipei City has receded, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said on Tuesday, after he was accused of mismanaging the city’s police force, resulting in police officers injuring a bystander they mistook for a fugitive.
On Sept. 20, four police officers erroneously arrested a man surnamed Huang (黃) in the city’s Sanchong District (三重) following an altercation, causing injuries that required hospital treatment. Both parties involved have pressed assault charges.
The New Taipei City Police Department’s Sanchong Precinct has issued a public apology to Huang after suspending the officers, with the adjudication for the rivaling lawsuits scheduled to begin next week.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Huang yesterday testified about his arrest to Control Yuan member Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻), a former mayor of then-Sanchong township who is heading the agency’s probe.
Speaking at a news conference outside the Control Yuan, Huang said video evidence showed plainclothes officers assaulting him without identifying themselves while uniformed officers looked on.
One of the officers put a knee on Huang’s throat and continued to strike him in the head after he had been handcuffed, showing a severe lapse of discipline, New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said.
Police officers involved in the incident have broken the law, and their filing of charges of obstruction and assault against the victim proved their apologies were not sincere, he said.
The officers should be censured by the Control Yuan and held accountable for their actions in court, he added.
Separately, Hou told reporters that the city’s violent crime rate last year receded and that the jurisdiction leads Taiwan’s special municipalities in crime prevention programs and clearance rates.
The city’s police force was recognized by the National Police Agency’s annual Outstanding Performance Award, he added.
Hou was a police officer before becoming a politician and police reform has been a top priority during his tenure as mayor, he said.
He felt insulted by the accusations, Hou said.
Earlier that day, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan that Hou has been eager to take credit for positive developments in policing, but disappears from public sight whenever scandals occur.
Besides the Sanchong incident, a shooting at a pawn shop in Banciao District (板橋) last month and the death of a boy from COVID-19, allegedly due to delays in the city’s emergency medical service, show severe lapses in leadership, he said.
“Hou’s favorite response to problems is that critics should not burden officers doing their jobs on the front line, which serves as an excuse for not addressing real issues,” Lo said.
The proportionality principle was not observed in the Sanchong incident, Economic Democracy Union convener and lawyer Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) said, adding that the measures taken by the officers were excessive, regardless of whether the person being arrested was a fugitive.
Additional reporting by Wu Su-wei
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
RSS