A Taxi Driver in China Speeds Away With a Police Officer on Hood

The driver went a total of 1.5 miles before dumping the officer
Frank Fang
3/30/2016
Updated:
4/3/2016

A taxi driver in China, in an attempt to throw off police, managed to carry one officer on his car hood while speeding down the highway.

According to video footage from a news broadcast by an unidentified television station in China posted to Chinese online media Sina, the taxi driver of a vehicle with the license number “Jin Yi 08888” was caught on the camera of a gas station, then by a traffic control camera, engaging in suspicious behavior.

The taxi driver, a man dressed in black and in a pair of sunglasses, had stopped for gas and got out of the car. In less than a minute, the driver returned, got into the driver’s seat, and started to drive off the moment a gas station attendant removed the gas pump from his car boot (the fuel tank nozzle appears to be located there). He didn’t wait for his car trunk to be closed.

Almost immediately, two traffic police officers dashed up to stop the man from leaving. One officer opened the driver door, and appeared to engage the driver in conversation for about two minutes, according to the time stamp on the gas station’s security camera.

Suddenly, the taxi driver backed up his car, and accelerated with the two police officers still clinging to the vehicle—one was holding onto the rear door while the other grabbed the hood. The news broadcast cut to a clip from a highway traffic control camera, which showed one of the traffic policemen still clinging to the hood of the speeding taxi. The driver door was closed, and the other police officer was nowhere to be seen.

The Paper, a Chinese online news website, said that the Tianjin Public Security Bureau had revealed more details about the incident in a note posted on its official social media account on March 22. The male taxi driver, 37, last name Ren, was a resident of Tianjin, a coastal city in east China, and the bizarre incident had occurred on the morning of March 16. The driver had tried to escape the police because he had a fake licence plate.

Ren had traveled about 1.5 miles before he finally “threw off” the traffic policeman on his bonnet near a village that was close to the highway. Eventually, Ren turned himself into to the police on March 22, and is currently being prosecuted.

It is unclear if the two traffic police officers was injured in the incident.

Frank Fang is a Taiwan-based journalist. He covers U.S., China, and Taiwan news. He holds a master's degree in materials science from Tsinghua University in Taiwan.
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