The Capture of Jiang Zhendong

WICHITA, Kan. - At 8 p.m. on December 19th, Wang Donghong picked up the phone at Central China Television's Beijing office.

The caller, a man, didn't immediately reveal his reason for calling. He would only admit that, "When I see a police car or hear a police siren, I get very afraid," and that he was involved in a crime.

Wang pressed for more, but the man didn't give any additional information. She gave him her cell phone number, and the next day he called the studio.

"My name is Jiang Zhendong," he said. "I am from Funing county, Qinhuangdao city. I committed a crime in Tangshan."

Jiang wanted to surrender, and for Wang to accompany him when the time was right. They agreed on December 20 in Beijing.

When Jiang arrived at the studio, police were in place on the floor above the interview room. But Jiang was having second thoughts. He thought he might not turn himself in after all. What he didn't know was that the news crew had already made the decision for him.

"Ultimately, Jiang Zhendong was not especially clear about surrendering. On the other hand, we cannot let a known wanted criminal just walk right out. Therefore, we still needed to notify the police. As soon as the police are involved, everything has to follow the judicial process. Therefore the police gave Jiang Zhendong a lot of time to think about what he wanted to do," said producer Fu Liaojun.

Halfway through a catered lunch with his mother, the police escorted Jiang out of the building. He is now police custody, facing an unknown sentence for economic crimes.

Xu Youyu, a Chinese academic, disagreed with the reporter's action. He believed Wang erred by notifying the police about this man's crime. The decision to surrender is Jiang's alone, and Wang broke her journalistic responsibilities by informing the police. Here are a couple of answers from an interview Xu gave with the Chinese magazine yWeekend in response to the case:


Q: What do you think the reporter should have done?
A: She should not tell her supervisor, and she should definitely not tell the police. I believe that she ought to find some personal friends who can give her advice. At the very least, she ought to feel that it was painful and immoral to inform her supervisor and the police.

Q: But this reporter received a call to the program unit during office hours. It was not a personal telephone call. Should she inform her supervisor and the police?
A: (brief silent pause) I am going to insist on my viewpoint. Even if she was at work, she is not a machine spare part. She is human above all, and so she ought to heed the call of morality. Perhaps my viewpoint is extreme. But I am worried that they made sure that many fugitives who might have wanted to talk will choose to continue to remain in flight because they are afraid of being turned in.


A criminal wants to turn himself in for a crime. Should the reporter involved notify the police?

This would be a tricky situation no matter the country. Is the reporter just an observer, or are there times when he or she become part of the events unfolding around them?

***

Dawn on the second day of the Kansas autumn arrived under clear skies. The sun rose parallel to the eastbound lane of Kellogg Drive, Wichita's main traffic artery. I saw the rays through my rear view mirror, speeding at 67 mph towards a stand-off in the suburb of Maize.

I arrived 10 hours in to find a pile of weary Maize residents hunched against a fence near a street corner. Blocking their entrance were half a dozen police cars and a Salvation Army van. These people told me, drooping eyes testament to a night without sleep, how they'd been cleared out of their homes around dinnertime by police, who said a neighbor barricaded himself inside a nearby house and claimed to have explosives. They had to leave right away, unsure of when they'd be back.

The Salvation Army arrived soon after the standoff began, offering food, hot drinks and hotel vouchers. Few took the vouchers, sure that they would be back inside long before daybreak. Nearly half a day later, it looked as if vouchers would have been the smart option.

Three hours later, it appeared as if I might be wasting my time as well. I had little to report back to the office for several hours on the scene. A stern police officer blocked my approach to any of the negotiators, and all anyone else at the scene had was constant but false rumors that the standoff would soon end.

I crossed the street where the police cars gathered and sat down on the sidewalk. I took out my breakfast - a mostly crushed bag of Chex - and started to eat.

"Hey. Excuse me," a voice said from a white SUV parked just up the road. It belonged to a woman, in her early 30s, with bleached blond hair messily arranged in a ponytail. She wore a white T-shirt with a faded design on it, and a mostly smoked cigarette sat in her right hand.

"Do you have a cell phone charger? I really need to make a phone call. It's urgent."

I did have a cell charger, but we quickly realized that my ancient phone wasn't compatible with her model.

I stood there, apologizing, when the woman started unloading her story: She was the girlfriend of the man inside the neighborhood. He had a couple warrants against him, but he was a good person. Now the police surrounded the house of another friend, guns trained at the man she loved.

Her phone rang. The conversation was short, her battery was almost dead.

"He says he's going to turn himself in." She looked up at me, tears forming in face, "No, no, no, No! NO! NO!"

I rushed over to the neighborhood's entrance, trying to see the action that was about to unfold. I couldn't. The only media who witnessed the surrender was one of the local television stations, which raised a camera to the top of their truck's transmission tower. My editor, watching back in the newsroom, saw the man leave his home peacefully, wearing no shirt or guns, and be swarmed by over a dozen police officers.

A police captain walked through the barricade and fielded questions from the standoff. Who was this man? We don't know, we know he didn't live at the house, he said. Are other people involved?

"We know that the man was talking to people inside the home," he said. "We'd like to talk to those people."

During the press conference, two police officers went over to the white SUV and escorted the woman away.

Back in the newsroom, I wondered if I should have gone to the police when I first met the girlfriend. The police would have wanted speak with her, and trained negotiators might have been able to end the standoff sooner.

But I'm a journalist, not an agent of the police, and that's why I believe I made the right decision in holding back. I can report the actions of suspected criminals and their associates without turning them into the police. Criminals should be captured by the police or turn themselves in out of their own free will, not because they decided to tell their story to a journalist.

Wang Donghong's decision to interview the Jiang Zhendong was a good one, even more commendable because it took place in China. And since Jiang hinted that he wanted to turn himself in, bringing the police to the station was also a good idea.

I admire Wang's careful balance of duty to her audience and her legal responsibilities. As I know, the decision can be difficult.

(The facts and quotes of Jiang's case presented here are based on EastSouthWestNorth's translation of the yWeekend article.)