On June 22 this year, Xiao Lou, a 28-year-old woman, was hit by a brick thrown from a high altitude by Zhou in the snack street of a night market in Changchun City, Jilin Province, and unfortunately passed away. On November 27, the case was tried and the verdict was not pronounced in court. On December 13, the case was pronounced in the Changchun Intermediate People's Court in the first instance, and Zhou was sentenced to death and deprived of political rights for life.
According to reports, before throwing bricks and stoning innocent passers-by, Zhou also threw two barrels of 5-liter bottled water and three cans of unopened Coke at a high-rise building, injuring two victims. Zhou confessed in court that he "threw it more than a dozen times in 6 days", and the circumstances were extremely bad. Because he was unable to support himself, he developed a sense of misanthropy and hatred of society, and premeditated the method of throwing bricks and other items from high-rise buildings many times to arbitrarily harm the lives of unspecified people on the ground. The court sentenced Zhou to death, and he really deserved it.
On November 27, a sign reading "Beware of Falling Objects" was posted at the entrance of the apartment building. According to upstream news.
In recent years, tragedies caused by high-altitude projectiles have occurred frequently and have aroused strong social concern. Because of the large randomness, it is difficult to be caught, resulting in a low cost of violating the law, so it is not uncommon to be banned repeatedly. High-altitude throwing is related to the safety of the public's head, and is called "the pain hanging over the city", just like a time bomb that endangers public safety, and has long become a social nuisance. Although the public has been paying attention to high-altitude projectiles for many years, it is unfortunate that the tragedy does not seem to disappear quickly, and the terrible danger still hangs over the city.
Since the Amendment (11) to the Criminal Law criminalizes high-altitude throwing objects, the crime of high-altitude throwing objects has increasingly become a common crime in judicial practice. However, because the sentence for the crime of throwing objects from high altitudes is relatively short, and it is basically "sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of less than one year, short-term detention or controlled release", the deterrent effect on some high-altitude throwers seems to be limited. Some people mistakenly believe that the crime of throwing objects from high altitudes is not a felony, and it is not easy to find the parties involved, the public security organs will not necessarily file a case, and the risk of violating the law is not high. As everyone knows, throwing objects from high altitudes does not only constitute the crime of throwing objects from high altitudes, and if other crimes are constituted at the same time, they will be convicted and punished in accordance with the provisions of heavier punishment. In this case, the procuratorate prosecuted him for the crime of endangering public safety by dangerous means, and the court also sentenced him to a heavy sentence for this crime.
Throwing objects from high altitudes can also be sentenced to death, which is the most powerful warning in this case to the repeated prohibition of high-altitude throwing behavior. In many cases, high-altitude projectiles are similar to an indiscriminate act of killing, which poses a direct threat to the lives of unspecified people. As it is often said, an egg dropped from the 8th floor can break a person's scalp, and a person can die on the spot if dropped from the 25th floor. Acts such as throwing bricks and throwing bottles of water have the same degree of harm as acts such as "arson, water breaching, and disseminating poisonous, radioactive, infectious disease pathogens, etc.", and are acts of endangering public safety by dangerous means, so they constitute the crime of endangering public safety by dangerous means.
In the specific case of the case, the death sentence was self-inflicted, and there was not much controversy. What is really worth asking is why the man still had the opportunity to carry out the last act of throwing objects that caused the death of passers-by after committing as many as a dozen consecutive high-altitude throwing acts in six days and injuring two people?Why didn't the local public security organs file a criminal case in a timely manner and take criminal coercive measures against Zhou?The serious consequences of throwing two 5-liter bottled water and three cans of unopened Coke from a high-rise building, which have caused injuries to others, have been suspected of constituting the crime of throwing objects from a height, and this tragedy could have been avoided if criminal coercive measures had been taken against them in a timely manner
Throwing objects from high altitudes, what is thrown away is civilization, and what falls is danger. In addition to putting an end to high-altitude throwing objects and moral condemnation, it is necessary not only to severely punish according to law, but also to punish it in a timely manner. Where a criminal case should be filed, a criminal case should be promptly filed, and where an administrative punishment should be given, an administrative punishment should also be promptly given. Only by greatly increasing the probability of high-altitude objects being investigated for illegal responsibility in a timely manner can this "safety helmet" of the rule of law better protect the safety of the public.
*: Red Star News.