From Tiexue:

July 6, around 8pm at night, a man on Zhannan Road robbing another man met resistance, and fled after stabbing the male victim with the pair of scissors. Afterward, the suspect armed with the scissor held a female victim passing by until 9:30 at night when a plain-clothes policewoman seized an opportunity, fired 4 consecutive shots, and he was shot dead at the scene. The hostage was successfully freed.

A video of what happened:

A news report on YouTube (originally from Youku):

From Tianya:

Firing three more shots, was it to completely finish the robber or for the hostage’s extreme safety?

The story of the brave policewoman was everyone in the media today. I have doubts. What I think is that one shot had already done the job. If it is about being on the safe side, after one shot, wouldn’t she have run forth and kicked away the robber’s weapon? If it really is like this, then she really is a hero: One decisive shot, kicking away the weapon, is brave, saving the hostage itself is of course heroic.

But the policewoman shot once, and then shot another three times. We don’t know what the policewoman was thinking at the time, but according to what she said afterward, “I was afraid the suspect would continue to hurt the hostage, so I stepped forth and shot a few more shots”, then it was for the hostage’s safety, or more precisely, it was for the hostage’s extreme safety. It looks like this is an iron law, that if it is not the robber who dies, then it would be the hostage that dies, so the robber must die, otherwise the hostage will still die. This is very consistent with the way Chinese people think, if it is not one, then it is two.

For example: If someone is not a good guy, then they are a bad guy. Watching television, basically the characters are fixed as good guys and bad guys, the good guys like this and the bad guys the opposites/antithesis. The characters in a film, aside from the good guys and the bad guys, there are no other people. In the end, the bad guys must all die, because if they do not die, everyone would feel indignant after the film ends. So, if the bad guys are not brought to justice and finally decapitated or executed by firing squad, then they get what they had coming, for example, accidentally falling to death or getting hit by a car and the like.

With regards to the problem of there not being any other people besides good guys and bad guys, no one tries to get to the bottom of it because no one feels it is meaningful. Of course, there are even less people who would ask whether the bad guys are able to become good guys. Bad guys becoming good guys itself is not an ideal outcome, something we cannot accept in our hearts. So when watching television series, we still prefer the bad guys to not become good guys, that if in the end the bad guys do not reach the threshold of being given the death penalty by the law, then at least they have to die from some abnormal occurrence. Over time, it becomes that bad guys must die. For example, Wen Qiang, already determined to be one of the bad guys, his death lets everyone feel at ease, even hanging banners and lighting firecrackers, because that is consistent with everyone’s hearts/thinking.

So, for these “are they bad guys or not, should they die or not” things must have support and as long as you can have everyone feel in the bottom of their hearts that he was a bad guy, then that’s enough. The moment everyone believes he is a bad guy, no matter how he dies it is all okay, because a bad guy is someone who does not deserve sympathy, someone who has no value in existing. Getting the masses to believe needs something, and that something is public opinion. Public opinion allows the majority of the people to automatically assume someone as a bad guy, so that everything will be seen as logical and coherent. In China, manufacturing public opinion is a very simple/easy matter, because the mainstream media is all centrally controlled, all living off of the government.

With regards to the calm and resolute firing of three extra shots, I am in objection/dissent/disagreement, which is why I have gone onto the internet to look at netizens’ opinions. Upon seeing them, I have discovered that I am not alone, that there are actually quite a lot of people who share my opinion. Only thing is, this is not the mainstream opinion. According to the theory of good guys and bad guys, the policewoman is the good guy, the robber is the bad guy. The matter is clear, the good guy is the good guy, and cannot have done a good thing yet become a bad guy, as that is something the heavens would not allow.

I don’t blame anything, I only blame that China has too few people, that there are only good guys and bad guys. I hope in the future, there will be people who are neither good guys or bad guys, that there will be bad guys who are good guys most of the time, that there will be good guys who basically always do bad things. This way, there will be a few more categories of people, and when three extra shots are fired, we will be at some loss: Are we sure the person we are killing is a bad guy? Perhaps using this method to view life is not serious enough, and is not appropriate, but at least life will still have some weight.

Comments from Tianya:

117422972:

One shot is not enough to satisfy the public’s anger, only with three more shots can one become a hero.

费正清:

Hostage-takers are utterly evil, and reason demands that they be shot dead.

Hostage-takers are not bad people? Are you the robber’s partner in crime?

The robber did not respect life, and the moment he himself created a situation where it was his life or the hostage’s life, no one is going to protect his bullshit life.

从农奴到将军:

[I’ve] carefully watched the video. With the first shot, the robber fell backwards and the hostage got away. Had the robber had made a move then there could be more shots first. However, because what he was holding was a pair of scissors and not a gun, the robber isn’t guilty of the most heinous crime. He had no intention of killing the hostage, he only wanted a ticket home [to escape]!

zw3958:

If you want to be commended, it is still better to fire off a few more shots. If [the criminal] is not shot dead on the spot, then the public treasury will be wasted again [on trials].

周丕东:

Reading the comments, I sigh that life truly is no longer worth more than a dog’s fart.

周丕东:

The main problem is that this female police officer was still able to laugh after the incident. A lack of humanity, a serious lack. No matter what, killing someone, especially if it was the first time killing someone, and then still being able to laugh afterward… This is China, everything is possible, nothing makes sense.

铲除公社大粪:

Handgun versus scissors, falling over and then firing 3 more shots… Fascism has returned.

爱情是我的信仰1:

I can’t stay quiet any longer…

LZ, you don’t need to kidnap a hostage, just go to America and brandish a knife running towards the police, and when you come back, I’ll pay for your travel expenses.

ljm554365055:

Who dares to admit that they weren’t pleased watching that killing video? That they weren’t delighted? Very stimulating, very realistic, much more enjoyable than cops and robber films.

That’s why everyone is strongly supporting the police, otherwise the police would hesitate to kill people in the future, and then who will provide us with fun scenes of killing? Stop arguing, go to bed, and wait to watch the next killing show.

terryfht:

I just want to say, if she were self-confident about her marksmanship, then one shot would be enough to disarm the robber’s ability to harm others.

If she were not self-confident about her marksmanship, then every shot of her’s was made under the possibility of harming the hostage.

You can say that any one of China’s police are expert marksmen, but I am not going to believe it.

彤彤红日:

“Fired once, and then fired 3 more times” This actually is just to put on a show [of authority] for the ordinary common people…

风铃～刀声:

According to common sense, this robber and this policewoman have no grudge against each other, so there is no need to kill. One shot was enough to disable [the robber’s] resistance, no need to fire more shots. One possibility could be that it her superiors ordered that the robber be shot dead. Another possibility may be that this policewoman has mental/emotional problems, maybe she was hurt by men before, so she took her grudge out on the robber. Sigh, we can only say this robber was too unlucky.

傲世孤鹰:

Seizing the opportunity to save the hostage is indeed worthy of praise, but consecutively shooting a suspect that has already been shot and has fallen to the ground no longer a threat another three times reveals the inhuman/savage side of this outstanding policewoman!

See also “Police Woman Shoots Hostage Taker” (EastSouthWestNorth) for additional translations, YouTube videos, and translated netizen comments.

Policewomen can fire 4 times. chinaSMACK personals.