05.04.2007

Police use lift to flush out murderer

Chinese police used an truck mounted boom lift and a high-pressure water cannon to flush out a murder suspect holed up in a hospital ward on Tuesday.

Police in Shenyang, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, cornered Yu Wenyi in an eighth-floor hospital ward, after pursuing the 55-year-old in connection with the murder of his mother-in-law and son.

On the same afternoon, the body of a friend of Yu's ex-wife was found in her residence by a neighbour.

Yu, carrying two knives, stacked three hospital beds together to barricade himself in and perched himself on a window ledge, the paper said.

Police set up an air cushion on the ground in case Yu jumped, and brought in a truck mounted boom lift and firehose. The lift was raised to the eighth floor and the firemen took aim.

After two hours of trying to persuade YU to surrender, police ordered the firemen to open fire with the hose.

Under the pressure of the spray, directed from around five metres away, Yu lost his grip and fell eight floors on to the air cushion where, unharmed, he was quickly detained by waiting police.