Airport police fired eight shots at a rideshare vehicle, trying to arrest the driver as he drove off with a passenger in the vehicle.
On the morning of Saturday, September 20, 2025 around 9:10 a.m. at Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport, near the Terminal 1 passenger pickup zone, two officers from the Aviation Police Bureau named Hung (洪) and Chou (周) went after 43-year old Tsai (蔡), who is a repeat offender for illegal passenger pickups. The woman in the car, Lee (李), had just arrived from Hong Kong.
The officers from the police bureau’s Security Inspection Brigade spotted the white Tesla soliciting passengers without being on the roster of legal airport taxis. They approached the car and asked for inspection. The driver refused to cooperate and attempted to maneuver away before the passenger could close the door.
The female passenger was ejected from the car in the melee and was hurt – and nearly run over – but fortunately got pulled to safety by bystanders as police fired on the drive – first warning shots into the air, then targeting the rear wheels the vehicle.
The shots caused the Tesla to stop. Officers dragged the driver out of the car and arrested him on charges of endangering public safety. Seriously – the driver is the one said to have endangered public safety.
The only reported injury was the passenger, who was taken to Min-Sheng General Hospital for medical treatment, while police note that non-airport licensed drivers are prohibited from soliciting or picking up passengers at Taoyuan Airport for (3) reasons:
- public safety
- fair business practices (protecting rideshare monopoly)
- traffic management.
This isn’t the first skirmish with police at the airport. On June 5, a Spanish tourist jumped out of a moving car near Terminal 2 when a driver under suspicion of illegal passenger solicitations tried to flee from airport police.
In most places, police shooting at vehicles would be controversial – especially when there are passengers, bystanders, and an unclear threat! – it seems that in Taiwan, enforcing the airport taxi monopoly is simply expected.
Social media within Taiwan seems mostly sympathetic to police, while mainland China state media is where criticism is most likely. I translated several Mandarin posts from Chinese apps.
Wait, people are blaming the victim in the airport-shooting incident? Taxi / licensed-car folks are saying ‘you picked a black-market driver, serves you right, should use legal service!’
“police shot seven times, folks who pick unlicensed ride-services at airports, you be careful — next one lying under a car might be you.”
(HT: Loyalty Lobby)
I have been to Taoyuan International Airport many times but have left the airport only once. That time I took a bus into Taipei and back to the airport again. An interesting visit. I usually have tighter connections and too much luggage to go sightseeing.
So… it was too much for them to note the license plate and get an arrest warrant? It’s a freakin’ misdemeanor.
I’ve been to more countries than I can count. Laws and how they are enforced are sometimes very different from the US. I’ve had drivers stopped by the police several times. In Kyrgyzstan, it took a payment to avoid being held by the police. The most surprising part was that our guide’s father was a General in the Kyrgyzstan military. I thought she had a get out of jail free card.
Well, at least they are training in accordance with the ‘porcupine’ strategy for defense against an attack by the CCP. Let that unauthorized rideshare ‘have it!’
Where’s @PENILE for the rebuttal in support of involuntary ‘reunification,’ or whatever euphemisms China Daily is using these days… I swear, every time I pass one of their newspaper boxes in NYC, it has the same fake headlines (‘growth,’ or ‘strength,’ or ‘unity,’ never anything bad or real, all propaganda.)
God bless America.
No plans and no interest or funds to go to Taiwan. However the story made me think of my dearest friend who is anxious about flying and is doing so in a week or two; thinking of forwarding the story to her to show her the risks are not in flying (she’s flying domestically, but still…)
@DA Pilit — You can count to about 200? Nice corruption you described. Yeesh.
@Robin Rosner — Unless it is invaded, which it should not be, lest we, in the USA, forget to defend the free peoples of the world (see Ukraine, *sigh*), Taiwan is incredibly safe, welcoming, and an all-around pleasure to visit.
Other countries have militarized police that sometimes abuse their power, too, including our own, and it’s bad when it happens anywhere, but this is a rarity there. Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. are all more modern and organized than many of our own cities. We should aspire to do better at home.
Break the law, pay the price. How could it be more simple than that?
That is crazy that police fired so many shots. Bystanders could of gotten hurt and then possibly sue the police for harming them for no reason.
@AdamT: Simple minds can only think about concepts from a simplistic perspective. It’s as simple as that.
@Adam T, @Frank — Ah, yes, the law, always ‘black and white,’ just like ‘speeding,’ do recall that next time you drive, even 1 mph over the ‘limit,’ then you, too, are ‘illegals,’ and should be shot at, no?
@1990 kinda funny that you can recognize Chinese state propaganda but swallow a different kind and regurgitate it without questing any of it
@not 1990 — You mean, Taiwan is a free, independent, sovereign country? Yeah, that’s not propaganda, that’s fact.
Nice job by the police. I have to make sure my phone is recording video next time in Taiwan. Maybe I can get a viral video. I’ll let the reader decide which sentence(s) is/are sarcasm.
@jns — Good one! I enjoyed your comments. I’ll also let the reader decide which sentence(s) is/are sarcasm. *wink* Safe travels!
First time hearing about the police charging someone for the actions of the police? Blanking the victims of excessive force is as old as time. I’m sure guards did it in Hammurabi’s time, just as the NYPD does it now.
@Steve — Oh, so we’re going Babylonian now… yeah, proportionality is generally a good approach. Certainly, Eric Garner did not deserve to die extrajudicially for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes.
If you trust AI overviews: “Following Eric Garner’s death, the NYPD implemented mandatory de-escalation and implicit bias training, required officers to use body cameras, and significantly reduced the use of the controversial “Stop and Frisk” tactic, a policy shift that Garner’s death helped to accelerate. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who used the banned chokehold, was fired, but for advocates like Garner’s family, true police accountability and reform are ongoing battles, with concerns about the effectiveness of internal disciplinary processes and calls for broader changes like ending qualified immunity.”
I bet you they obey the laws in Taiwan unlike the USA where criminals can do whatever they want. We need more Taiwan policies here in USA
When I saw the headline, I automatically assumed this happened in somewhere in the United States.
Did anyone notice the names of the police officers? Reminds me of constipation.
@ted — Turn off your ‘entertainment-based’ news channel. The USA is no a dystopian-hellscape, except for the abuses of power at the top. Cities, suburbs, and small towns are doing just fine; real people, trying their best, doing jobs, raising kids, helping their aging parents.
As to ‘We need more Taiwan policies here in USA’… if you mean, preserving democracy, sovereignty, and dignity of all people within our country and throughout the world, then I’d say: yessir. Let’s.