Shooting fuels safety fears in Chongqing
A man was gunned down in central Chongqing yesterday, sparking concerns about deteriorating law and order in the triad-plagued southwestern municipality.
It was the second such case within three months. A sentry was shot dead outside a People's Liberation Army garrison in the city on March 19.
Yesterday's victim, 44, was shot at the main gate of Aidingbao Residence in Jiangbei district as he was walking home after parking his BMW sedan in a garage around 2am, Xinhua reported.
The unidentified victim was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Local police said the circumstances were under investigation and gave no details about the case.
Dozens of residents and passers-by were stopped at the scene of the shooting and questioned about the incident.
Some residents said they had become worried about their safety.
'At least two armed robberies have happened outside the main gate, just a metre or two away from the scene where the shooting took place, over the past two months,' a woman who identified herself as Ms Zhang said.
'Robbers hit the victims on their heads with iron bars they carried and left them seriously hurt and without their possessions.'
Ms Zhang said almost all of her neighbours were talking about the incident.
A security guard, the sole witness of the shootings, was questioned by police and was helping with the investigation.
A netizen on Tianya, one of the mainland's most popular online forums, wrote that she heard two gunshots as she was about to switch off her computer and go to bed at 2am.
'When I first heard it, I thought it was firecrackers,' she wrote. 'But I immediately realised it made no sense to set off firecrackers at that hour.'
She peeked through the window and saw a woman crying out beside her husband. 'Police did not appear until half an hour after the shooting,' she said.
Netizens complained about the slow police response and suspected the shooting was the result of a gang conflict. Others asked how Chongqing had become such a chaotic city.
In the aftermath of the killing of the PLA sentry in March, Bo Xilai, the Communist Party chief of Chongqing, said it was only an isolated incident.
He called for a six-month crackdown on crime, which has apparently had little effect so far.
Also in March, Mr Bo appointed Wang Lijun director of the municipality's Public Security Bureau to deal with rampant gang crimes. Mr Wang was one of Mr Bo's top aides in Liaoning province and a man he called an anti-triad hero.
There has been speculation that the murder of the sentry was retaliation by local triads against the crackdown Mr Bo launched after he assumed office in 2007.
