Heat brings ‘dead man’ scam to a sticky end
Print Edition
A VENDOR’S attempt to fake his own death for compensation was exposed after the heat in central China’s Hubei Province left him dying for a drink.
The incident occurred around 4pm on Saturday, when more than 10 men were seen holding the vendor’s “corpse,” covered with a sheet, on a gurney near Jianghan Road subway station in provincial capital Wuhan.
The group claimed that chengguan or urban management officers had beaten the man to death and demanded tens of thousands of yuan in compensation, a member of staff with the city’s urban management authority said yesterday.
More than 300 people gathered at the scene and 80 police officers were dispatched to maintain order.
However, the crowd dispersed two hours later when proceedings took a surprising turn.
The “dead” vendor suddenly leapt up, grabbed a bottle of water and gulped it down, before saying, “It’s too hot. I couldn’t bear it anymore.”
The soft drink vendor, surnamed Han, and two others have since been detained for disturbing public order.
Han told police that urban management officers with the city’s Jianghan District had clashed with the vendors earlier in the day.
The chengguan said stallholders were blocking traffic, told them to leave and seized drinks from them, he said.
The No. 2 Hospital of Wuhan City confirmed that some vendors and urban management workers sustained minor injuries in the altercation, but said there had been no fatalities.
Photographs of the scene were posted online, which web users jokingly said showed the effects of the hot weather.
Saturday’s weather record shows that the day’s high hit 36 degrees Celsius in Wuhan, but local residents recorded the high at 45 degrees Celsius.
Other parts of China have been experiencing extreme heat, as well, including Fujian, Hunan and Zhejiang provinces and Chongqing and Shanghai municipalities. More than 10 people across the country died of heatstroke last week.
China’s chengguan, are often criticized for their violent approach to tackling low-level, urban and non-criminal regulation violations. Reports about urban management law enforcement units often make the news due to accusations of chengguan officers beating vendors and smashing their stalls.
Last month, a watermelon vendor who brawled with urban management officers in central China’s Hunan Province died of a hemorrhage caused by external force, an autopsy found.
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