Hostagetaker, Victim Dead in Police Stand-offA hostagetaker and his hostage were found dead Thursday, December 21, after a 23-hour stand-off involving hundreds of police officers in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province. Another hostagetaker was found wounded.The dead hostagetaker was thought to have committed suicide when three gunshots were heard from the apartment at 3 pm on Wednesday, Chinadaily reported. At 8:10 on Wednesday morning, the two suspects, Wang Qunchao and Yang Baolin, broke into an apartment on the 17th floor of the Marylon Plaza in Shenyang, stabbed the owner's wife in the face, breast and back, shot and injured the nursemaid, and took the owner, Wang Jiang hostage. The wife and the nurse managed to escape and called the police, who arrived in less than 10 minutes. The elevator was shut down and the two criminals were held at bay in the apartment, which was surrounded by hundreds of police, several SWAT teams, dozens of police cars, fire engines and ambulances, together with thousands of onlookers. The victim, Wang, 47, was a local fire extinguisher dealer and the son of a senior official in the Shenyang municipal government. Wang Qunchao, 45, has been on the police wanted list since he allegedly killed a shop assistant in Shenyang in August. Wang and Yang Baolin, 26, have also allegedly killed several people in Northeast China. The two threw tens of thousands of banknotes out of an apartment window at 12:30 pm and 2 pm on Wednesday and tried to escape in the ensuing chaos, but failed. At 3 pm the SWAT team tried to get into the apartment using a fire ladder, but the ladder would not reach to the 17th floor. Thursday morning, the police managed to enter the apartment's bathroom through the holes they opened during the previous night. And they found Wang Jiang and Wang Qunchao dead and Yang Baolin injured. |
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