Police chief Laobu Laluo prides himself on dispensing justice unflinchingly — whoever the criminal may be.
Alas, his commitment to upholding the law seems matched only by his relatives’ dedication to breaking it. In a decade-long career he has arrested no fewer than 48 of them, for crimes ranging from assault and theft to blackmail.
Twenty-five of those, including his brother, have been jailed, sentenced to re-education through labour or penalised in other ways.
Other offenders include cousins and numerous members of his wife’s family. Furious relatives have accused him of making them lose face, threatened his parents, and even attacked the family cattle, cutting off their tails and slashing their legs. But the director of the Heizhugou town police station in Leishan city, Sichuan province, is unbowed by the pressure.
”I am a person who cares about relationships and cherishes friends and relatives, but when there is conflict between the law and friends and relatives, I would choose law and justice,” he told the Chengdu Economic Daily.
”As a police officer, if you can’t manage your relatives well you don’t have the right to manage others.”
While his diligence may not have endeared him to his family, the newspaper says it has made him something of a hero in his area. Chinese citizens frequently bemoan corruption within officialdom.
Laobu, who is in his 30s and a member of China’s Yi ethnic minority, said trouble began in 2000, when he learned that his younger brother and two cousins had beaten teachers at a primary school while drunk.
Despite his mother’s tears and the pleas of his uncle and aunt, he personally arrested all three. His brother Laqu was sentenced to 18 months in prison, while one cousin got three years and the other six months.
Another cousin was sent for re-education after blackmailing a motorcyclist for 5 000 yuan ($730) by falsely claiming the man had knocked him down.
”In the first few years I did not dare go back home for the new year holiday, but now it’s all right,” Laobu said. ”Everyone understands and supports what I was doing at the time.”
His brother has pledged not to cause further trouble and the blackmailer is now a reformed character, elected as leader of his village on account of his upstanding morals.
But other relatives appear slow to recognise Laobu’s zeal. Only this year Laobu found his cousin Labulida had been involved in snatching a handbag from a woman on a bus. – guardian.co.uk