3 officials suspended in police baby-throwing case
Shanghai Daily, August 19, 2013
Three senior officials in Linzhou, a city in central Henan Province, were suspended last night after a police officer dashed a baby girl to ground but received only 15 days of confinement as an internal-affairs punishment.
The director, political commissar and deputy Party secretary of the Linzhou Public Security Bureau are assisting the police investigation, People's Daily website reported.
The officer, Guo Zengxi, 50, was detained on Saturday on suspicion of throwing a baby girl to the ground and fracturing her skull on July 18, Linzhou police said.
Guo and his friends were heading to a karaoke venue after eating and drinking when they saw Li Qingfeng carrying his seven-month-old daughter.
Guo suddenly grabbed the child from his arms, held her above his head and then threw her to the ground, a police investigation report said.
Police found that he didn't quarrel with the girl's parents as a neighbor had claimed.
A senior official with the city's People's Congress had cited an "internal report" saying Guo bet that the baby was just a doll and hurled her to the ground to prove he was right. Police haven't confirmed that account.
The girl has been released from hospital and is in stable condition. Though the city's health department has arranged a stay in a hospital in Beijing for further treatment, her parents were reluctant to have her undergo a lot of X-rays, the city government said.
The decision on whether to send her to Beijing will depend on how she progresses, city officials said.
The girl's parents didn't publicize the case until Zhai Jianzhou, director of the city's People's Congress, described the incident as "intolerable" at a meeting in late July.
Several sources said Guo and Li had arranged for Guo to pay the family multiple hundreds of thousands of yuan in compensation and the case was considered over, Beijing News reported. Official with the city's publicity department denied it and Li didn't respond.
