Three Wuxi officers questioned in truck driver’s death

By Chen Xingjie  |   2008-10-20  |     ONLINE EDITION

WUXI police are investigating the mysterious death of a truck driver who witnesses said was beaten by urban management officers, a local newspaper reported today.

Three officers were detained and being questioned in the Jiangsu Province city in connection with the death Saturday night of driver Lin Jianhua, 31, according to the newspaper Xiandai Kuaibao. The three, who were not identified, took him to the hospital where he was declared dead on arrival, the report said.

The receiving doctor surnamed Zou, seeing the man’s fatal injuries, called police who took the three into custody for questioning, the newspaper reported.

Many urban management personnel, who are not police but are on city payrolls nationwide, are criticized for shakedowns and heavy-handed methods in clearing streets of vendors and maintaining order. Many are known as “big hats” because of their large official hats.

Wuxi truck driver Lin had been stopped and fined several times by urban management staff for dirtying the streets as he hauled construction materials from city ports to construction sites, the report said, and he was fined on the day before his death.

Lin was taken to Xin’an Hospital where urban management personnel said he was injured when he jumped from his truck, the report said.

Witnesses said, however, that the driver was badly beaten, possibly to death, by the urban management personnel, the newspaper reported.

A witness surnamed Li told the newspaper that Lin was stopped by three urban management officials on Saturday night. Lin jumped off the truck to escape but was chased and beaten, the newspaper said. The attackers put him in their van and left the scene, it said.

Lin bought a truck half a year ago and went into the transport business.

A day before he died, Lin was fined, said his friend surnamed Wang