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at 9 a.m. on september 22, a hearing was held at the caofeidian district people's court of tangshan city on the review of the appeal filed by chen zhiwei, the police officer sentenced in the tangshan barbecue restaurant beating case for abuse of power.

on september 23, a reporter from xiaoxiang morning news learned from an informed source who participated in the hearing that he submitted seven new pieces of evidence at the hearing, which fully restored the process of chen zhiwei's police response on the night of the incident.

xiaoxiang morning news previously reported that on august 4, chen zhiwei (who was sentenced to one year and one month in prison for abuse of power) made a real-name report on an online platform, saying that he was temporarily assigned to the police, and when he responded to questions such as the time of the police dispatch, the city-level leaders asked him to read a news release. he also said that the case officers interrogated him in violation of regulations and forced him to be convicted, and that his two handwritten appeal letters had no results. this move has attracted widespread attention from the entire network.

in the early morning of august 6, a special working group composed of the tangshan municipal commission for discipline inspection, municipal public security bureau, municipal procuratorate, municipal court and other departments issued a report stating that the situations reported by chen zhiwei were all untrue.

this official notice did not calm the incident. chen zhiwei continued to release videos and continued to speak out through media interviews. he said that the situation report released by the special working group was still the content of the verdict, and the issues he reported, such as the time of the police dispatch, had not been clarified. he would publish the police handling process, disclose the details and "report to the end". at the same time, chen zhiwei expressed the hope that higher-level departments would intervene in the investigation. however, on august 7, chen zhiwei cleared his related updates on the social platform. in a later interview with the media, chen zhiwei insisted that the police handling process was arranged by the leaders and handled in compliance with the regulations, so he believed that he was not guilty.

according to a notice of trial extension provided by chen zhiwei during an interview, on july 4, the caofeidian district people's court gave him a notice of trial extension, saying that the trial period would be extended by three months, until october 4, 2024, "due to the seriousness and complexity of the case." regarding the progress of the investigation of chen zhiwei's appeal, on august 7, the caofeidian district people's court told the reporter of xiaoxiang morning news that they were "waiting for official notification."

according to lawyer zhou zhaocheng, the hearing lasted from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm on september 22, about 5 hours. the entire hearing was mainly about whether the facts and evidence of the original judgment were wrong. he submitted 7 new pieces of evidence at the hearing, which fully restored the police response process of chen zhiwei on the night of the incident. however, zhou zhaocheng did not disclose the details of the 7 pieces of evidence.

zhou zhaocheng believes that the original verdict on chen zhiwei's crime of abuse of power is questionable and a retrial should be initiated in chen zhiwei's case.

first, regarding the delay in dispatching police officers, chen zhiwei, as an ordinary police officer, could not decide on his own when dispatching police officers. the delay was caused by the difficulty in allocating police forces and the road construction obstacles at that time, and it was not his personal responsibility. more importantly, the delay did not lead to serious consequences, such as the case being unable to be solved.

secondly, the accusation that he allowed chen jizhi to leave the hospital is also not true. because the case was only an administrative case when the police were dispatched, and chen jizhi was in the hospital receiving treatment. chen zhiwei immediately reported to the duty director, and the superior did not require any control measures to be taken. this was the grassroots police's performance of their duties in accordance with the law, not an abuse of power.

third, there were obvious errors in the application of law in the original judgment. the crime of abuse of power requires the perpetrator to have subjective intent and objectively cause major losses. in this case, chen zhiwei had neither subjective intent nor caused any major losses.

in addition, chen zhiwei's performance of his duties reflects the hard work of grassroots police officers. as a grassroots police officer, on the day of the incident, chen zhiwei worked from 8:00 a.m. on the 9th to 6:00 a.m. on the 10th. the 22-hour shift was extremely hard, and the police response to the tangshan assault case lasted for 3 consecutive hours. he always followed the principles of fairness and legality in the performance of his duties. after the incident, he was able to actively cooperate with the organization's investigation, showing good professionalism, and should not be overly criticized.

xiaoxiang morning news previously reported: the policeman sentenced for the tangshan barbecue restaurant beating case cleared the content of the report and posted the chat records as evidence. three major questions about the incident remain to be answered

focus 1: did chen zhiwei deliberately fail to perform his duties and allow the main culprit to leave?

according to the relevant situation report released by tangshan on august 6: chen zhiwei failed to enforce the law in accordance with the case handling regulations during the handling of the "06•10" barbecue restaurant beating case. after discovering the main culprit chen jizhi in the hospital, he deliberately failed to perform his duties and allowed chen jizhi to leave, causing bad social impact. after trial in accordance with the law, he was found to have committed the crime of abuse of power.

in response to this, chen zhiwei, in an interview with dahe daily, explained why he failed to arrest the main culprit on the spot.

he said that when he found chen jizhi in the hospital, he was still drunk and had a brain injury, and his family members requested treatment at the scene. moreover, there was a "serious shortage of police force" at the time. "if i had brought two more people, we could have separated them and the work could have been carried out at the same time. there was no one available at the station at that time... my subjective motive for intentional crime did not exist at all, and it did not constitute the subjective intention element of the crime of abuse of power."

regarding whether he had consulted and reported to the squad leader han zhiyong, chen zhiwei said, "in addition to reporting to han zhiyong over the phone, i also sent the information i had in the hospital to the wechat work group. finally, han zhiyong gave me an order to go back to the station to interrogate shen xiaojun... sometimes reporting means reporting the situation on the scene to the leader clearly and waiting for the leader to give me an order. as for whether i asked the leader clearly how to deal with chen jizhi, i can't answer. this inquiry is equal to asking for instructions and reporting to me."

△ screenshot of wechat work group chat records provided by chen zhiwei. source: dahe daily

regarding the crime of abuse of power, on august 7, liu kai, a lawyer at beijing zhongwen (changsha) law firm, explained to the reporter of xiaoxiang morning news that it refers to the behavior of state agency staff exceeding their authority or abusing their authority, causing major losses to public property, the interests of the state and the people. the subjective intention element of the crime of abuse of power requires that the perpetrator knows that he has exceeded his authority or abused his authority, and knows that such behavior will cause losses to public property, the interests of the state and the people, and the perpetrator hopes or allows the loss to occur.

focus 2: are there problems such as no response to reports and delayed appeal procedures?

according to the relevant situation report released by tangshan on august 6, chen zhiwei did not appeal after the verdict. regarding chen zhiwei's complaints about the case officers' illegal interrogation, forced conviction, no response to his report, and delayed appeal procedures, the working group conducted verification by reviewing the files, viewing the video of the detention interrogation, checking the transcripts, reviewing chen zhiwei's confession, and talking to relevant personnel, the problems he reported were not true.

in this regard, chen zhiwei said in an interview that he followed the normal appeal process and submitted an application for retrial at the end of 2023, and the last one was on january 5, 2024. on july 5, the caofeidian district people's court gave him a notice of extension of the trial period, saying that the trial period would be extended by three months to october 4, 2024 "due to the seriousness and complexity of the case."

lawyer liu kai once explained to a reporter from xiaoxiang morning news that in my country's legal system, filing an appeal and applying for a retrial are two different forms of judicial remedies, and the applicable procedures and conditions are also different.

if a party is dissatisfied with an effective judgment or ruling, and cannot appeal because it has already taken effect, according to the law, the party can only appeal to the people's court or the people's procuratorate to obtain legal relief, so that the people's court can initiate a retrial procedure for the case. according to article 247 of my country's criminal procedure law, the retrial period is usually three months, which can be extended by three months.

after the retrial procedure is initiated, if the appeal is in one of the following circumstances, the people's court shall conduct a new trial: (1) there is new evidence that the facts determined in the original judgment or ruling are indeed wrong, which may affect the conviction and sentencing; (2) the evidence used for conviction and sentencing is not accurate or sufficient and should be excluded according to law, or there is a contradiction between the main evidence proving the facts of the case; (3) the application of the law in the original judgment or ruling is indeed wrong; (4) the litigation procedures prescribed by law are violated, which may affect a fair trial; (5) the judges have committed acts of corruption, bribery, favoritism, fraud, and miscarriage of justice when hearing the case.

if the people's court considers the original criminal judgment or ruling to be correct after review, the people's court shall persuade the appellant to accept the judgment and stop the appeal. if the appellant insists on making an unreasonable appeal, the people's court may rule to dismiss it.

focus 3: what was the police response like at the time of the incident?

according to the relevant situation report released by tangshan on august 6, chen zhiwei reported that the actual response time was more than 10 minutes and that he was asked by relevant leaders to read a script of "response time of 5 minutes". after verification, it was found that he discussed with the police officers (who have been dealt with according to law) before the interview and concealed the matter before announcing it to the public.

however, chen zhiwei said that he could obtain relevant evidence to prove this. according to dahe daily, chen zhiwei said, "the fact confirmed in the verdict is that it took me more than 20 minutes to get to the scene. the real fact is that i didn't know about the police until almost 3 o'clock. after receiving the call, i dressed up and went downstairs normally. because the road in front of the police station was under construction and we had to take a detour, we responded to the call normally."

△ screenshot of wechat work group chat saved by chen zhiwei. source: dahe daily

regarding lying about the dispatch time during a media interview, chen zhiwei said that he received a notice on june 11, 2022 that he needed to be interviewed by the media, and the script he saw said "we will arrive at the scene in 5 minutes." he said that this was not his dispatch time and he could not read the script. "the leader got angry and asked me to read the script quickly. later, i read the script. my mentality at the time was to tell the leaders i could contact the real dispatch time in a realistic manner. as a policeman, i must follow orders."

chen zhiwei also said that the notice released by tangshan this time still contains the contents of the verdict. "there is a surveillance camera in the conference room on the 4th floor of the branch. if you check the surveillance, you can see the situation at the scene. and there are so many people at the scene, including those from the branch, the municipal bureau, and the propaganda department. just ask a few people and you will know... until now, they have not investigated the time of the police response i reported. there were auxiliary police officers on duty at the time, and there are surveillance videos. it will be clear if you check it."

xiaoxiang morning news reporter wu chenxingzi