Policeman tried for deadly shooting

A policeman stood trial Thursday for shooting dead a pregnant woman and injuring her husband at a restaurant in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Guigang Intermediate People's Court heard the case in public. Over 40 people, including the families of the victims and the defendant, legislators, local citizens and press attended the hearing.

Policeman Hu Ping was charged with intentional homicide. The victim's family requested a strict sentence and 1.23 million yuan (201,300 US dollars) for economic compensation. They have received a compensatory payment of 730,000 yuan from the local government.

A sentence was not given immediately in court.

The investigation by the local public security bureau showed Hu was drunk when he shot the couple, who ran a rice noodle restaurant, on Oct. 28, 2013. The husband was slightly injured in the right shoulder, but the wife and her unborn child died.

Hu was carrying a pistol with six bullets and another five in the holster that night. He said in court that he had the gun while off duty because the local police station did not have gun control equipment.

Hu is not the first policeman to have shot innocent civilians in the province. Another drunk police officer in Laibin City went on a shooting spree on July 21, 2011 and killed one and injuring another.

Similar tragedies have occurred in the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan.

In 1999, the Ministry of Public Security stipulated that public officials lawfully equipped with guns could use them only when there was official necessity. In 2003, the ministry explicitly prohibited public officials from carrying guns while drinking alcohol.

One of Hu's colleagues told Xinhua that their station had lax gun control and it was not unusual for officers to carry a gun after work. When Hu committed the crime, he had only been equipped with the gun for less than two weeks.

Li Liping, a lawyer with Beijing Shangheng Law Firm said China lacked laws on gun control and institutional deficiencies increased the risk of gun crime by public officials.

Li said tougher penalties and better gun control regulations would help to prevent such tragedies in the future.