Chinese policeman accused of drink-driving after car ploughs into crowd
- Six people injured, two seriously, after incident on Friday night in Wuhan
A prison police officer is being investigated on suspicion of drink-driving after a car ploughed into a crowd of people in central China on Friday night, local media reported.
The officer, surnamed Xu, was behind the wheel at the time of the incident in which six people were injured, two of them seriously, according to Chutian Metropolis Daily.
According to eyewitness reports, the car scraped against two parked cars before skidding into a group of seven people who were sitting eating snacks at the side of the road in the Qiaokou district of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.
A store owner told the newspaper that after the car came to a halt a man wearing a police officer’s uniform got out to inspect the damage.
One of the people injured, a man surnamed Peng, said he saw the car travelling at speed before it crashed.
Peng, who was scalded when a bowl of noodles was knocked into his lap, said a driver wearing sunglasses exited the car and said: “All of you stay here. This will be taken care of properly.”
Xu was soon joined by two men, one of whom also claimed to be a police officer.
The three men then got into an altercation with a bystander, who received several blows from the men before police arrived on the scene.
Police later told Thepaper.cn that Xu, whom they confirmed was a prison officer, had been admitted to a holding facility for suspected drunken drivers.
Police are investigating the incident and have yet to determine whether Xu was over the drink-drive limit, which in China is a blood-alcohol content of 80mg/100ml.
It was unclear what happened to his two companions.