Riot Gear and Big Guns Near Yonghegong Temple
A few nights ago, I was minding my own business biking home from the Andingmen area on the Second Ring Road, when I noticed two police officers in full riot gear talking to a motorist on the side of the road. The one speaking had a giant plexiglass shield on his left arm, separating himself from the civilian, and a huge shotgun in his right hand pointed at the guy’s face. To his right was another officer with the same deal.
You know you’ve been in China too long when you consider stopping to watch something like this. Instead, I slowly bike by, behind the officers about 5-10 meters, trying to figure out what the hell was happening. I started to take out my cell phone, but then decided that, perhaps, in a de facto dictatorship, it might not be the best idea to photograph riot police confronting a civilian.
From the best I could tell, it was a fairly standard traffic stop. Except for the two 12-gage shotguns and plexiglass riot shields. And I want to stress that, while it was sort of near Yonghegong Temple, it was extremely unlikely that there was any connection (it was a couple hundred meters east). It appeared they were asking him for standard paperwork–just in a really intimidating manner.
The weirdest part was seeing the pedestrians walking by on the sidewalk watching these events unfolding. There was this moment when one couple looking curiously slowed down…and then suddenly realized if there were a shot fired, the bullets would go right through the guy and land on the sidewalk where they were standing. They quickly scurried away, and I biked away in puzzlement.
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Rhys responds:
Posted: July 18th, 2008 at 10:35 am →
Were newspapers here allowed to report on such things freely, I think a good headline would be:
“A little bit of overkill”
Grim but to the point.
Lonnie responds:
Posted: July 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm →
It is a bit tense here in GZ now that the street police have he authority to demand identity papers/passports from foreigners. Some of the more zealous ones have used it as an excuse to harass the local African population. One of my friends was wrestled to the ground, kicked and hauled off for questioning for doing exactly what you decided not to do: he looked a a text message coming in to his phone just as another African was being roughed-up by police. They thought he was photographing…
I am anxious for the Games to end…
All of them…
Nick responds:
Posted: July 19th, 2008 at 10:34 pm →
OMG this is what I expected before I came to China, though when I arrived I adopted the mindset that China was pretty normal.. maybe the developing argument had a little credence.. now?
If I can tick off getting mauled by a segway riding assault squad before I leave, that’s gotta earn me some street cred.