Ex-police chief gets 12 years in prison, fine following vicious attacks on women in Tangshan

A former police chief from the city of Tangshan in northern China, who was in charge in 2022 when a group of women was brutally attacked at a late-night barbecue restaurant, has been sentenced for sheltering gang members.

Ma Aijun, who ran the Lubei branch of the Tangshan Public Security Bureau in Hebei province, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined 700,000 yuan (US$97,293), a court in the neighbouring city of Langfang said in its annual report on Sunday.

It was the first announcement regarding sentencing of officials connected to a case that outraged the nation after a video of the attack went viral.

The [court’s] focus in 2023 had been on criminal cases that sabotaged market and social order, Wang Peiheng, acting president of the Guangyang District People’s Court, said in the report

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Chinese women turn to self-defence classes after brutal attack on female diners in Tangshan

“We regularly cracked down on crime and eliminated evil according to the Anti-Organised Crime Law, and concluded three cases involving eight people,” he said.

Ma was convicted and sentenced for breaching the law for personal gain and bribery.

As of Tuesday morning, the news has been read over 130 million times on Weibo, with most readers concluding that justice had finally been served.

“This is a reasonable follow-up to the incident,” one commenter said.

Many people slammed the slow initial response to the assaults by the local police.

“I cannot imagine that if the video did not go viral and they hadn’t faced the anger of the public, how long the police would have protected the gang members,” another reader remarked.

China’s top court orders crackdown amid public outcry over attack on women

In June 2022, a video from the restaurant attack sparked public outcry after it had gone viral. It showed a local thug, later identified as Chen Jizhi, harassing a woman and beating her after she rejected his advances.

The woman’s friends had attempted to intervene but were assaulted by Chen’s accomplices, who stormed the restaurant, struck the victims on the head, dragged them outside and continued the beatings.

Prosecutors accused Chen of being a gang leader and charged him in connection with 11 other crimes dating back to 2012, including three unlawful detentions, assault, illegal gambling and robbery.

He was sentenced in 2022 to 24 years in prison.

But lingering questions over how Chen had walked free after his earlier offences prompted the provincial public security department to order police from Langfang, about 150km (93 miles) from Tangshan, to take over the case.

Many had blamed the local police, accusing them of a slow response after arriving at the scene only after the suspects had fled.

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The party disciplinary authority in Hebei investigated 15 officers and officials in Tangshan, according to the Hebei Commission for Discipline Inspection.

In August 2022, initial investigations found eight officers, including Ma, two directors and two deputies from three police stations found evidence they had allegedly abused their power, breached the rules and accepted bribes.

South China Morning Post