The Death of a Brave Cop in the Line of Duty Intertwined with Police Officers’ Cries and Echoes of the Poor

 The Death of a Brave Cop in the Line of Duty Intertwined with Police Officers’ Cries and Echoes of the Poor

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

July 9, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

A young and outstanding railroad police officer Lee Cheng-han died in the line of duty when he was stabbed by an assailant on the train; the news shocked the society. However, what the officer’s death has left to the Taiwan society should not only be a brief emotional reaction; from the police system to a deeper role of the police and social prevention system should all be reexamined.

After the unfortunate incident occurred, President Tsai Ing-wen issued instructions to back up the police, saying "we give money if money is needed, we assign more people when more are needed." Talking about "assigning more people," in the past, the railroad police force has had over 900 officers; the last time when the DPP took power, it slashed the number, causing a perennial inadequacy of manpower on the railroad police force. At present, the budgeted complement stands at only 650 officers; after Tsai Ing-wen issued instructions "to assign more people if they are needed,” the force will gradually increase by 260. Strictly speaking, it is only returning to the railroad police bureau the number of officers that the Chen Shui-bian government had slashed.

As for "giving money," it directly points to the issue of whether police equipment is appropriate. Inside the narrow and crowded railroad car, we are afraid that the simple draw of a pistol would elicit a big wave, thus what is the use of replacing the service pistol? We frequently see police officers in Europe and the US carry pepper spray and stun guns and other non-lethal weapons, allowing officers to subdue thugs in time and on the spot.

This time the man involved in the homicide case, named Cheng, had enormous financial pressure in his family; both he and his wife were suffering from depression. How could the government use earplugs, feigning ignorance about the sorrowful cries of the population at the lowest level of society? Facing increasingly numerous victimizers who belong to social failure-type homicide offenders, why is it that the social safety net that the Tsai government actively wants to erect has become more and more porous?

Every police officer family in its heart hopes that the officer will "come home safely"; the beat cops, besides asking for dignity in exercising their duties, are even more saddened that "today a public funeral service, tomorrow everything being forgotten"; all this cannot be settled with "giving more money and assigning more people". The death in the line of duty is intertwined with the weeping of the officer’s family and the cries of police officers, as well as the sorrowful groaning of the poor in society; the Tsai government cannot feign being asleep.

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