Officer who killed villagers in Guizhou 'lacked experience'
- Source: Global Times
- [01:48 January 20 2010]
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By An Baijie
A police spokesperson said the deputy police chief who killed two villagers in Guizhou Province when he responded to a dispute "lacked experience" with such emergencies.
Zhang Lei, deputy chief of Pogong township police station in Aushun, shot two men in the head last Tuesday after he and an auxiliary police officer tried to stop a fight between the victims and two other men at a local fair.
The victims, Guo Yonghua, 44, and his cousin, Guo Yongzhi, 36, were accused of assaulting Zhang and of trying to take his weapon.
A preliminary investigation showed that the cousins were both drunk when they attacked Zhang and tried to snatch his pistol, Ran Taiyou, deputy chief of Anshun public security bureau, told a news conference Monday, referring to the autopsy results. Ran said Zhang did not drink before he responded to the case.
Ran denied a report that Zhang recklessly fired at Guo Yongzhi as Guo crawled on the ground and begged for help.
Ran said that Zhang shot five bullets including two warning shots but was ignored by the two. Guo Yonghua was shot in the head and in the right thigh, while the other victim was shot in the face below the left eye, he said, noting that forensic examination indicated the officer fired at close range.
Eyewitnesses told the Shanghai Morning Post that the pair did not assault the officer and claimed Zhang first threatened bystanders not to help Guo Yongzhi after he was shot in the leg.
An employee of the Anshun government told the Global Times Tuesday that the case were still unsettled.
Families of the two villagers will each get 350,000 yuan ($51,300) in compensation, said Wu Xin, head of the town-ship government, adding that the dead were buried Saturday, the Xinhua News Agency said.
