A resident said Professor Chen's black Lexus was parked in front of two other cars, blocking someone's way and then a conflict occurred. At around 7 p.m. the night before last, in Room 122 Taiping North Road, Xuanwu District, Nanjing, a professor Chen from Chemical Engineering College had an argument with his neighbor over parking space dispute, which later escalated into physical violence. Subsequently, Prof. Chen's family called the police. When both parties were on their way to the police station for mediation, Prof. Chen suddenly fainted due to discomfort inside the police station. Around 8 p.m., Prof. Chen was sent to the nearby hospital for emergency treatment but eventually died due to ineffective rescue. The untimely death of this middle-aged professor and doctoral supervisor just because of a parking dispute made many residents sigh with regret.
Our reporter Haiyong Li / Written and Photographed
After the Conflict
The Professor Suddenly Lost Consciousness While Being Interviewed
At around 10 p.m. the night before last, after receiving a tip-off from a citizen, I rushed to the No. 81 Hospital in Nanjing where Prof. Chen was being treated. In the emergency room, a burly middle-aged man was lying on the emergency bed without any signs of life.
I noticed that there were still quite a lot of bloodstains at the corners of his mouth and nostrils, and various kinds of life-sign monitoring data lines were connected to his limbs. Although the pacemaker was still working, it could no longer serve any purpose. According to his brother Zhiping Chen, the middle-aged man under rescue was his younger brother Zhiming Chen, who was merely 48 years old but already a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Chemistry & Chemical Engineering College of Southeast University. He was directly sent to the hospital for emergency treatment by the 120 ambulance from the police station at around 8 p.m. Unfortunately, this young doctoral supervisor eventually passed away. Around 11 p.m. the night before last, Zhiming Chen's body was sent to the Forensic Medical Center of the Nanjing Public Security Bureau, awaiting the final autopsy result from the police.
At the same time, in another medical room at the No. 81 Hospital, Zhiming Chen's wife, who was also injured in the conflict over parking problem, was receiving examination and treatment from doctors, unaware of her husband's death. She was anxiously waiting to drive back to her hometown in Anhui province with her husband. Zhiming Chen's wife introduced that on the night of the incident, the couple returned to their residence at Sipailou in Nanjing. "Because my mother was sick, we set out from here to drive back to my mother-in-law's home in Huainan, Anhui during the National Day holiday."
"About at 6:50 p.m., when I went downstairs with some stuff and prepared to get in the car, what I saw shocked me," Zhiming Chen's wife said. When she went downstairs to prepare to get in the car, she saw her husband being surrounded and beaten by an old man and a young man. "Because it was dark, I didn't see clearly what the father and son held in their hands. They kept hitting my husband's head. My husband's head was shaken like a drum. They also kept kicking his stomach."
After the conflict was separated by nearby neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Chen quickly reported the incident to the police. After the police from Meiyuan New Village Police Station in Xuanwu District arrived at the scene, they immediately requested both parties to go to the police station for investigation. "But on the way to the police station, my husband kept feeling dizzy. As soon as he sat down at the police station, he fainted on the ground before the record was finished. It was the police who notified the 120 emergency service to save him." Zhiming Chen's wife cried while recounting the event.
Cause of the Incident
One wanted to leave, one refused to give way
Conflict caused by parking obstruction
At 8 a.m. yesterday, I arrived at the neighborhood to understand the specific situation. The boss of the small shop near the scene of the incident, Mr. Chen, witnessed the process of the incident. According to this Mr. Chen, shortly before 7 p.m. the night of the incident, after hearing the noise outside his store, he ran out of the store and found that because the road was not wide, private cars parked on both sides occupied the road. Prof. Chen driving his black Lexus was stuck at the intersection while waiting for his wife to come down from Building 18 to fetch things and leave. At this moment, another father-son pair who came to visit Prof. Chen's mother-in-law at Building 8 just went downstairs to drive a white Dongfeng Nissan home. But because the way out was blocked by Prof. Chen's black Lexus, a verbal quarrel occurred between the two parties.
"In fact, it was just a parking dispute, and it was unexpected that the quarrel escalated into physical violence, resulting in Prof. Chen's death. This really should not have happened. We are all drivers, and the community is an old one with narrow roads and many cars, so traffic jams are inevitable. If either side had made a concession at that time, the current uncontrollable situation would not have occurred," said Mr. Chen, the boss of the small shop at the entrance of Building 18 and 8 of the Southeast University residential area.
During the interview, many residents living nearby were shocked to hear the news that 48-year-old Prof. Chen died unexpectedly after having a fight over a parking dispute. A teacher Zhang, who was in the same school as Prof. Chen, repeatedly expressed regret: "He is not only the tallest among us teachers in our school, but also a rare talent in our school. Last year, he even won the second prize of national scientific and technological progress. How could he die just because of such a small parking issue?"
Was he injured or did he die of anger?
Police still need to investigate
"How could a mere physical conflict cost someone's life?" Yesterday morning, this was the most common confusion and doubt I heard in the East Residential Area No. 122 Taiping North Road, Southeast University.
One teacher familiar with Prof. Chen said that Prof. Chen was over 1.8 meters tall and relatively fat, making him the tallest among the teachers. People nicknamed him "Big Guy". However, the residents nearby indicated that the father-son pair who had a conflict with Prof. Chen over the parking dispute were not short, but none of them could compare with Prof. Chen's height and weight. Among them, the child helping in the physical conflict was still a second-year junior high school student this year. "Could it be that Prof. Chen suffered internal injuries and then died of anger?" Some local residents wondered.
Then, how did Prof. Chen die? How did the police handle this murder case? For this, I learned from the Xuanwu District police yesterday afternoon that the reason for the argument and physical conflict between the two parties was indeed caused by a parking dispute in the community. Why did the tall and stout Prof. Chen die unexpectedly in the conflict? The police still need to wait for the autopsy results from the forensic center. Currently, the father-son pair who had a conflict with Prof. Chen have been controlled by the police, and the police are investigating the specific case.
Yesterday evening, I found through the Southeast University website that Prof. Chen, who eventually died in the hospital due to ineffective rescue over a parking dispute, was the director of the Chemical Engineering Department, professor, and doctoral supervisor of the university. His personal experience was: obtained a doctorate in chemical engineering from Zhejiang University in 1996, promoted to professor in 2003, and hired as the leading talent for innovation in Zhenjiang City in 2009. His research direction was: fine chemical engineering, material chemical engineering, biomass energy chemical engineering.