A police chief in the eastern province of Jiangxi was chopped to death as he tried to settle a dispute between two villagers.
The incident follows several violent acts against police, including the fatal stabbing of six policemen in an attack on a sub-station in Shanghai by Yang Jia of Beijing on July 7.
A police headquarters was torched by tens of thousands of protesters in Wengan county , Guizhou province , in late June.
According to the Nanjing-based Modern Express, a minor quarrel between two villagers, Liu Yunhui and Liu Qinzhong , in the town of Kengtian, Jian , turned into a scuffle on Monday afternoon.
Liu Yunhui was widely regarded as a troublemaker by residents because of his criminal history, which included an 11-year jail sentence for raping a girl and a theft.
When Li Siming , director of the Kengtian Public Security Bureau, arrived with a colleague in the early evening, Liu Yunhui had already suffered an arm injury in the scuffle while Liu Qinzhong's left eye had been injured.