Vietnamese worker shot while escaping police inspection
Central News Agency
2016-03-06 06:31 PM
A Vietnamese worker was shot by police in Taipei early Sunday after the man pushed a police officer and attempted to flee from a roadside inspection, according to the Taipei police.
The man, in his 40s, was riding in a taxi when four policemen who were carrying out roadside tests pulled the vehicle over for an inspection in a Xinhai Road underpass at around 1 a.m., the Taipei City Police Department's Da'an Precinct said.
When the taxi approached the inspection point, the police "sensed that something was wrong because the passenger looked nervous, so they asked the driver to pull over for a check," Lin Chieh-wei, chief of the Heping East Road police station, told CNA by telephone.
When one of the police was checking the license plate and ID of the taxi driver, the Vietnamese man was also asked to identify himself, but he did not respond to the police request, Lin said.
Instead, "the man suddenly pushed the police officer toward the fast lane of the road and ran out of the underpass." Three of the police pursued the suspect for around 250 meters, the chief said.
After failing to stop him with verbal warnings, one of the officers fired five warning shots toward the ground, one of which hit the man in the right hip, Lin said.
The man fell to the ground and was arrested and taken to the hospital, according to the Da'an Precinct.
The man remained conscious and his life was not in danger after treatment, the police said.
According to the police, the Vietnamese man came to Taiwan to work in 2011 and was reported missing two years later. He allegedly fled on Sunday out of fear of giving away his runaway status, the police said.
After questioning, the man was sent to the prosecutors on charges of obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duty.
The runaway rate remains high among foreign laborers in Taiwan, often because of the high fees that they have to pay brokers, or abusive work environments.
