78-year-old construction worker crushed to death by excavatorJuly 4th, 2010
Recently, this set of chilling photos was circulating the Chinese websites and forums with the title “Peasant worker crushed into meat pie by excavator, where is justice”. Was it a murder or another housing demolition gone bad? Netizents speculated. Then I found the news report of this incident on Netease.
According to the county government’s investigation, on June 26, 9:30 am, fighting over construction work, depute between two construction teams broke out and caused the death of one team owner’s father Wang Qingbo at a factory site in Chetianwan village, Zhongfeng town, Ziyuan county. After the incident, county initiated investigation, and according to the evidence collected by the county law enforcement department, the incident was determined as a homicide. On June 27, suspect Cheng Kai turned himself in, and the law enforcement is currently dealing with the aftermath of the case.
After the investigation, it was confirmed that the death was caused by dispute over profits. After village official Cheng Yuhong did the earthwork at a factory construction site, a villager named Wang Shaoxiang thought his company also supposedly contracted the site’s earthworks and drove a leased excavator into the site. Cheng Yuhong did not agree, so dispute broke out between Cheng and Wang, both tried to prevent other from working on the construction site. The town government investigated the matter and tried to resolve the conflict, but both sides had different opinions on the mediation. June 26 morning, two parties again tried to stop each other’s work. When a member of Cheng’s team Cheng Kai drove the excavator at the site, 78-year-old Wang Qingbo (father of Wang Shaoxiang) stood in front of the excavator to stop the construction. During the dispute, Cheng started the digging machine, and Wang Qingbo was crushed to death on the spot. After the incident, Cheng fled the scene but later surrendered to the police.