Brilliant Police Waiting Game "Captures" Clever Crook

I don't need no arms around me
And I don't need no drugs to calm me.
I have seen the writing on the wall.
Don't think I need anything at all.
No! Don't think I'll need anything at all.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all you were all just bricks in the wall.

It's all keystone, all the time here in the future Republic of Formosa. Yesterday's big news was that the murder of Weng Chin-nan, the alleged gangster killed in Taichung in front of four policemen, had been "solved." The dastardly murder had been tracked down and apprehended! Or turned himself in. Or something....

Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) last night announced that police had cracked the high-profile murder of Weng Chi-nan (翁奇楠) after a 17-year-old, Liao Kuo-hao (廖國豪), turned himself in on Wednesday night and confessed.

“A meeting will soon be arranged between Liao and the other suspects we have in custody [in the Weng case] to try to learn more details of the murder,” Taichung City Police Department Deputy Chief Yu Hui-mao (余輝茂) said.

Liao turned himself in to police on Wednesday night after getting in touch with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓) through one of Chou’s supporters to say he wanted to surrender.

After verifying Liao’s identity, Chou called Taichung City Police Chief Chiu Feng-kuang (邱豐光) to arrange for the teenager to turn himself in.

Oh yeah, the lad turned himself in. The story in the local papers was that he had run out money since his gangster pals decided to stop supplying him with the stuff, and the only way he could eat was if he went to jail. Imagine that conversation:

INSPECTOR: Excellent work, boys. How'd you catch him?
POLICEMEN: We starved him out, sir.

The police adopted a "we'd have won anyway" stance...

Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) told reporters on the sidelines of an event at Taiwan Police College (TPC) that Liao’s surrender was the result of hard work by police.

It showed that police officers had not given up on the case and the shooter had not fled the country.

“Immediately after the murder, a special police task force identified this as a well-planned and complicated case, involving not only the gunman, but also a driver and a behind-the-scenes mastermind,” Jiang said.

“Although some people said the police would never catch the gunman because high-ranking officers were involved and that the murderer had escaped to China, the police were actually in total control,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say we knew where Liao was at the beginning, but we were certain that he was in the country. That’s why officers looked for the people who were helping him, to force him out,” Jiang said.

Not mentioned in this report of the TT was that Liao was wanted as a suspect in a murder when he was 16 (gunned down restaurant owner) and was already on the lam. The terrible family background of the became an issue for public complaint as well:

Chou said Liao was unhappy with Taiwan’s education system.

“He told me that since he was a young child, his answers on examination sheets never won the approval of his school teachers,” Chou said.

Liao’s parents divorced when he was in elementary school and his father was a drug addict who was in and out of prison. He was raised by his grandparents.

Hsieh Sheng-nan (謝勝南), student affairs director of Liao’s junior high school said the former student’s complaints were unfair.

Not really a lesson there, except the universal one that stable families produce stable kids. Dad was in the pen and just out again (for pic of Dad, scroll down in this link to second pic, Dad is the black shirted one) and the grandparents were raising the kids. Children being raised by grandparents is a common phenomenon in Taiwan. I'd love to see some comparative research on things such as school performance, obesity, socialization, and similar, on this issue. At my daughter's school I could name several kids being raised that way and none were academically strong.

Liao is a juvenile offender and will not get death.
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Daily Links:

• Public outraged at judges giving rapist of 6 year old 3 years because she hadn't resisted. Seems to me the judges might be wanting to call attention to how stupid the law is.
• Shipbuilder is first Chinese firm listed on Taiwan stock exchange
• China Reform Monitor:

  Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza has published a lengthy commentary condemning Beijing’s “long-term interest to weaken the European Union as a manufacturer and exporter of goods and services, including as an institution that promotes democratic principles.” “Chinese expansion is not favorable for us,” said the left center newspaper, “Poland should be anxious to see a strong America.” It attacked EU’s common foreign policy as “wading around in the kiddie-pool” and said Europe’s common defense policy is “nonexistent.” It concluded by imploring Warsaw to support U.S. efforts to counter China: "Only the United States is capable of promoting effectively, or at least in a way that can be noticed in Beijing, the free market and democracy. There is no other world power with which we share all our political and ethical values.”

• Global Views with new poll out on public mood, support for politicians, etc. Rising public confidence in the economy has not translated into greater support for Ma & Co.
• Lung Ying-tai ripped in Ming Pao; the PRC fears Taiwan's democracy and its spokesmen and hangers-on always attack it. Lung's own position is a mass of contradictions.

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