Three police officers in Tainan City accused of improperly handling a police report that could have potentially helped prevent the murder of a Malaysian female student last year, were impeached and referred to a disciplinary court on Tuesday, the Control Yuan said Wednesday.
Kao Wu-yuan (???), Chang Chung-ken (???) and Yang Ching-yu (???), who were stationed at Tainan City Police Department’s Gueiren precinct at the time, did not properly handle an attempted abduction reported by a female Taiwanese student enrolled at the same university as the victim, one month before the murder took place, the Control Yuan said.
The first student reported to Kao and his supervisor Chang on Sept. 30 that a man placed his hand over her mouth and attempted to abduct her at the same location from where the Malaysian student was taken by the same man on Oct. 28, the Control Yuan said.
The student reported that she screamed for help and was able to break free, but Kao did not record the case in his work log or fill out any paperwork on the case, with his supervisor Chang failing to correct him, it said.
The fact that the suspect sought to use violence to control the female student constituted a crime that should have been investigated, but Kao and Chang were negligent in their duty to protect the public, it said.
Yang, then-chief of Gueiren precinct, also failed to clarify the details of the earlier case with Kao and Chang, even after the murder.
On Oct. 29, a press release from the precinct falsely stated that the first student never reported the attempted abduction to the police.
Yang also falsely said on Oct. 30 that the student had been unable to provide key information on the suspect and declined to file a report, which severely damaged the image of the police, it said.
The 24-year-old student, surnamed Chung (?) attended Chang Jung Christian University in Tainan. She was raped and strangled to death by the suspect, surnamed Liang (?), who later dumped her body in the mountainous Alian District of neighboring Kaohsiung.
After the murder, Yang and Chang were reassigned, while Kao retired from the police in December 2020.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel