Chinese Bystanders Attack Police Following Murder of Street Vendor

There has been yet another display of police brutality in China, followed by the reaction of Chinese citizens taking justice into their own hands.  On April 19th, a group of “chengguan”, China’s publicly despised municipal police/state inspectors, were seen harassing a street vendor in Wenzhou City in Zhejiang Province.

 A passer-by, 36-year-old Mr. Huang, started to take pictures of this incident with his cell phone camera.  In typical police fashion, they asked Mr. Huang to delete the photos from his phone and when he refused, he police began to beat him with a hammer.  Mr. Huang would later die from these injuries on his way to the hospital.  Meanwhile, members of the public watched the encounter as it happened, with word of this incident spreading locally online too.

The result was around 1,000 angered people taking out their anger on the police.  The chengguan tried to get into their van to escape, but masses of people surrounded the van and began to deflate the tires, and pelted the vehicle with bricks and stones.  The group of police were pulled from the van and beaten down by citizens.  Here there is a bit of conflicting information, with a news release from the official website of the Cangnan local government stating that five of the chengguan were hospitalized while two went into shock due to blood loss.  There is a different source however that claims that at least 4 of these police officials were killed as a result of being beaten so badly.

When an ambulance arrived to tend to the police, the angry citizens also flipped the vehicle on it’s side.  Over 100 riot police were dispatched to disperse the growing crowds.  The police fired warnings shots into the air and used tear gas to control the crowds.  Over 10 onlookers have been arrested in connection with this riot, according to state-run Cangnan News.

This is yet another incident of brutality by the chengguan, and the Chinese people seem to have simply had enough bullying by these agents.  Their official job is to enforce local ordinances, but they now have a reputation of harassing, attacking, and even killing street vendors as well as those who stand up for the vendors being bullied.  According to Human Rights Watch, Chinese media reported more than 150 incidences of violence involving the chengguan between 2010 and 2012.

Just earlier this month, a 70-year-old man was beaten to death by chengguan after he attempted to help resolve a scuffle between a local street vendor and a group of chengguan. In March of 2013, a blind beggar was beaten and thrown into a pond by chengguan in Zhaotong City.  Also, in July last year, a farmer named Deng Zhengie brought his home-grown watermelon to the streets to sell in the town of Linwu, Hunan Province.  After complying with a request to move to a designated vendor area, a fight still broke out between the inspectors and Deng and his wife, with Deng being beaten to death.  The offenders in this case were given very moderate jail sentences from 4 to 11 years, which many citizens felt was much too light of a sentence for such a crime.  This event too caused thousands of citizens to mob up in outrage over the killing.

The types and severity of police misconduct seem comparable to that which goes on in the United States, with the exception that the police in the US almost never face any jail time for killing unarmed citizens.