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THOUSANDS of policemen launched a massive manhunt for four prisoners who escaped together after killing a guard at their prison in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Escapees found Shortly after Xie Li opened her small shop in Taiji Village of Helin County at 8:10 a.m. Tuesday, she received a man in his 20s wearing dirty clothes. Accompanied by another young man waiting outside the shop, the young shopper was apparently in haste. “I’m a passer-by. My vehicle is broken and I found a repairer. I need to buy something for him to eat,” he told Xie. After he left with a dozen packets of cigarettes, a few bottles of drinks, liquor and sausages, Xie saw two other men join them. The men walked off in the direction of a mountain instead of a road. She quickly reported the occurrence to village officials, who later reported it to police. Arriving at the village at about 8:20 a.m., police drove across a grain field to search the mountain. The four convicts saw the police and started to run. Witness villagers said they saw the convicts run a distance of about two kilometers in 10 minutes in their bid to escape.
Hostage taking The four then hijacked a truck driving on a path between fields, and dragged a female bystander onto the vehicle. “At around 8:40 a.m., I was driving my truck and four men ran up and climbed onto my vehicle,” said Yang Jinwei, the driver. “One of them threatened me by putting a 20-cm knife to my neck, and the others dragged me off the truck.” After the four prisoners left with their hostage on the truck, police arrived and resumed the chase, taking Yang with them.
Tricycle turnover The prisoners drove the hijacked truck onto Hetuo Road at around 9 a.m. and two groups of policemen tried to outflank them from behind and in front. “At 9:25 a.m., we found the truck,” said a police officer surnamed Chen. “The men tried to turn left onto another road, but overturned at the junction.” When police officer Guo Yanjun arrived at the scene, one of the prisoners was holding the woman hostage with a sickle. Guo ran up and grabbed the sickle in order to free the woman, but another prisoner armed with a knife attacked Guo from behind, injuring him. The other prisoners were still trapped in the overturned truck when more officers arrived. One of the escapees, Li Hongbin, was soon subdued by Guo, but another one stabbed him in the leg. “I saw an injured policeman. He asked me to put pressure on his bleeding leg,” said a villager called Wang Fusheng. At around 9:30 a.m., more policemen arrived to round up the remaining three prisoners. When police approached Gao Bo, one of the prisoners, he stabbed a policemen in the left leg, at which point another policeman shot him dead.
Suicide attempt Prisoner Qiao Haiqiang climbed to the fourth floor of a residential building. When police arrived, Qiao attempted to cut his throat but was prevented by officers. The last prisoner, Dong Jiaji, kept running but was soon caught by police. “When we arrived, we ordered him to put his hands behind his head, and he succumbed to us after seeing no hope of escape,” an officer surnamed Chen said. |
