What happened when the police showed up in response to the confrontation between the Wong family and the construction workers sounds like something from a ridiculous movie script.
In the northern city of Panjin, the Wang family owned a small farm that was getting consigned to the government. The victim’s older brother offered up their farm expecting to take 900,000RMB from the consignment and retire back to Shandong. However, the government had offered only 490,000RMB, which was actually the accurate amount for their farm (according to size and the fact that the farm land has been part of a collaborative farm ). The collaborative farm sued the family, the law suit passed, the family signed the contract, still they were not happy.
According to the officer who discharged his weapon, when he was called over to the farm, he was approached by a bare chested man (the victim’s brother). The man walked towards him smiling with two bottles of soft drinks under his left arm, and offering a third bottle in his right hand. While he walked, he twisted open the bottle cap, and said: “come come come, you’re here to solve our problems right?” As he said this, he squeezed the bottle. The police officer backed away, but too late, his upper body got soaked with gasoline.
Then the guy poured the rest of the gasoline all over his own body, took out a white lighter and continued to rush towards the cop, saying “Can you solve the problem?! If you can’t, today we’re going to perish together!” The officer backed away again, telling the guy to stay calm, stay calm, but was obviously ignored.
At that time, a women was also rushing at the cop with sickle in hand. She starts waving the sickle wildly to prevent the officer from crossing their rice paddy. She also didn’t listen to the officer as he told her to put down the blade.
As per regulations, officer Zhang responded by taking out his pepper spray and sprayed the woman in the eyes. She became enraged by this and started to violently cut towards the officer, saying “let you touch me, I’ll kill you!”
Officer Zhang reached for his gun as he kept backing away and kept warning the women to stay away. But there’s no use, the women kept cutting down towards him. Officer Zhang took out his gun, released the safety, loaded the gun, and fired a warning shot into the sky.
At that time, the police was not clear what was going on inside the farm, but from the emotional state of the Wang family officer Zhang was sure that they would start a fire. Thus he and his coworker immediately ran towards the farm, wanting to save the people there. Before they were able to get near, he saw a flames leaping from the crowd of people in the paddy field.
At the same time, another man ran at them also wielding a sickle (the victim’s father). He began to drag at officer Zhang, preventing him from entering the farm. Officer Zhang wanted to back off, fired another round into the air, but the old man began to wrangle and tug at Zhang, cutting the officer’s left hand in several places with the sickle.
While they struggled, the gun misfired. Officer Zhang heard the shot, saw a cloud of dust rise up from the ground, and did not know whether he might have hit the old man.
Now the man who was on fire (the victim Wang Shu Jie) cried “Ah!” and rushed at the officer. Zhang felt that Wang Shu Jie was determined to burn the both of them to death together.
As officer recounts the events he states that
Even now I still remember the face of the man on fire like he’s right in front of me
There was still a few meters between Zhang and the man on fire. Zhang fired another warning shot into the sky to no effect. The burning man kept coming at him. When he was only a meter away, Zhang remembered that his own torso was soaked in gasoline. Under the urgent situation, Zhang aimed his gun at the man on fire and pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit the man. officer Zhang thought the man was about to be subdued. Who would have thought that after half a second, the man again threw himself at the officer with a scream. Yes, engulfed in FLAMES and SHOT, Wang kept coming. Officer Zhang turns and runs towards the open paddy fields. One foot got caught in the mud. He turned his head to look back, just to see the OLD MAN rushing at him again with the sickle! Zhang pushes the old man who fell in the muddy dyke separating the fields. Zhang made to take away his sickle, in the ensuing struggle, his hand was wounded even more seriously.
When the rescue team arrived, Zhang was covered in blood. He had his co-worker check his gun. The gun could hold 6 bullets, 3 of which was fired into the air, 1 was accidental misfire, and 1 hit the man on fire, with 1 more remaining in his gun.
In consideration for the Wang family having parents and young children to support, the government offered them humanitarian financial supplements in addition to compensation for the farm.
