A police chief in Runan County, Henan Province, killed at least five people while driving drunk. But first responders at the scene hastily removed the bodies to a mortuary, causing a mass protest and leading locals to call it a blatant cover-up.
A furious crowd blocked the road, destroyed a police car, and smashed the windshield of a funeral home vehicle.
Local media reported that Wang Yinpeng, Chief of Henan Police, killed five and injured three around 3:00 p.m. on Oct. 29 while drunk driving.
The next day, official state media Xinhua said in a news release from Runan County, Henan Province, that Wang knocked down two streetlight poles and caused five deaths when he drove a police car while intoxicated.
Though over a thousand people gathered at the scene, the official report did not mention anything about it.
“It’s terrible! The victims’ intestines and livers were visible. Someone was still pinned down by a fallen electricity pole. Everyone at the scene said it was horrible,” Ms. Chang, a witness who owns a store close to the scene, told The Epoch Times. She also said that a total of seven people were killed; many onlookers saw six people die at the scene, and another victim was said to have passed away later at the hospital.
Mr. Wang, a local farmer, told Radio Free Asia on Sunday that there were more than a thousand people surrounding the officials’ cars, demanding the arrest of the police chief. He said it is a very serious situation as it is the police who caused the accident. The people in the street were local migrant workers.
“The crowd was furious. The windshield of a vehicle from the funeral home was smashed, and a police cruiser was also destroyed. The crowd surrounded the funeral vehicle and blocked the road,” Mr. Wang said.
Netizens responded with scathing comments. They also uploaded photos of the accident scene.
One wrote: “I don’t understand. Why is it that after the accident it wasn’t an ambulance but the crematorium’s car that arrived at the scene first? With the victims’ families absent, they actually tried to cremate the bodies. Isn’t that the government’s fault?”
Another wrote: “There’s even a tow truck there, trying to tow away the car involved in the accident. But people stood on top of the car and prevented it. I don’t know how the authorities in the end will twist the truth and lie about the police chief who caused the accident. I’m still waiting.”
Five mass protests were reported in China during the past week. A million people rioted in Zhejiang last Wednesday to protest discriminatory and violent tax collection. People set vehicles ablaze and smashed police cars.
On the same day, in Cenxi City, Guangxi Province, thousands of high school students went on strike because of high cost of school food.
Last Friday evening, riot police were dispatched when thousands of people in Shenzhen’s Futian District protested because a Chengguan municipal code enforcement officer had injured a local vendor.
Read the original Chinese article.
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