Prison break shakes Inner Mongolia
- Source: Global Times
- [04:01 October 27 2009]
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From prison, the four escapees race south and hide in Taiji village, Horinger county of Hohhot, capital city of Inner Mongolia. After a tip-off alerts police, the gang hijacks a tractor and takes the road west towards Togtoh county. The chase ends in the town of Shibiya with one escapee shot dead, one in hospital and two others captured.
The escape-and-chase raced across Inner Mongolia from 3:30 pm, October 17 to 9:30am, October 20.
2:26 pm, October 17: A seemingly quiet weekend at the No.2 Prison in Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia. Prisoners Gao Bo, 27, Dong Jiaji, 27, Qiao Haiqiang, 28 and Li Hongbin, 21, shatter the peace.
They lure prison guard Lan Jianguo to a secluded spot where one kills him with a paper knife, reportedly cut off a finger and take his entrance card. Taking the finger and the card, they rush out and snatch a police uniform from another guard.
One wearing a police uniform and three in casual clothes, the four swipe their way through the first two gates with Lan's card.
How they break through the third infrared gate remains a mystery, with the media offering many different explanations. Some say the escapees open the third door with one of Lan's severed fingers, but according to the Beijing News, Lan's autopsy report makes no mention of a missing finger. Other media report the four escapees follow another prison guard and sneak out behind him by exploiting a time lapse.
Breaking out of the fourth and last gate by stabbing a guard, they hijack a taxi parked outside the gate. Later when the cab runs out of gas, they abandon it and hijack another Fukang car.
October 18: They run toward Horinger county and hide themselves in an abandoned house in the south of the village of Taiji. The police meanwhile are hunting down, setting up a network of road blocks.
4:50am, October 19: Thirsty and famished, the four sneak out of their hideout and one knocks at a local's door. He asks 68-year-old local, surname Wang, for water.
"We have no water," Wang says. The old man notices other men acting suspiciously in his courtyard and asks who is there, but receives no reply.
Wang hears footsteps, turns up his lamp but can see nothing. Suspicious, he opens the door at the crack of the dawn and finds four sets of footprints. He reports the strangeness to village officials on the morning, who tell local police.
"I would not have doubted them if I had not heard on may way back from Hohhot that four criminals had escaped from the prison the day before Monday," Wang says to the media later.
