The National Police Agency (NPA) used excessive force to expel protesters, made untruthful statements about the number of injuries and shielded misconduct within its ranks, a new Control Yuan report on the government’s actions during the Sunflower movement found.
The Control Yuan probe into clashes between demonstrators and police in the early morning of March 24, 2014, found multiple agencies to be at fault, Control Yuan members Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) and Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Corrective notices have been issued over the failures of the police agency, the Ministry of the Interior, the Executive Yuan, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office and the Taipei Police Department, they said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Senior police officials failed to thwart the improper use of force by police as they sought to remove protesters, which led to injuries of 15 people who later sued the government and were granted compensation, they said.
Police commanders were within range to observe that officers were using batons to strike peaceful demonstrators in the head, but did nothing, the Control Yuan members said, adding that interviews with victims allowed them to reconstruct the location of events.
Citing an example, they said that a 74-year-old man surnamed Chou (周) was struck by a water cannon and then beaten with batons, resulting in multiple fractures and internal bruising in the abdomen.
He died a year after the confrontation, they said.
Former NPA deputy director-general Tsai Cang-bo (蔡蒼柏) in 2020 told the Control Yuan that 42 members of the public and 191 police officers were injured during the clashes, they said.
Hospital records for that day showed that 166 people were admitted for injuries, including four with injuries that were deemed potentially life-threatening and 73 with urgent, but not life-threatening injuries, they said.
This means the number of injuries among members of the public was 3.95 times higher than Tsai claimed, they said, adding that no police officer was admitted to hospital after the clashes.
Then-NPA director-general Chen Chia-chin (陳家欽) in 2020 told Control Yuan member Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) that police commanders who made mistakes during the clashes had been disciplined, but the agency only reprimanded one SWAT team commander from Taipei, they said.
The agency continued to take no action against officers engaged in misconduct, they said.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office and the police agency did not conduct a proper investigation into accusations of police brutality, they said, adding that a CD storing crucial video footage was rendered unreadable by mishandling or sabotage.
The police agency and the interior ministry should thoroughly examine and improve the training of police officers with regard to civil rights to ensure that Taiwanese do not lose trust in law enforcement institutions, they said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS