Violent enforcers

Senior law enforcement officials in Wuhan may have acted quickly to punish the police officers responsible for severely beating up a middle-aged woman in front of the provincial Party headquarters Tuesday.

Yet, the action does not go far enough. The concerned authorities must take sterner measures to root out thuggish behavior by the police in such matters and come clean on the issue as soon as possible.

In scenes seemingly straight out of a gangster flick, six plainclothesmen surrounded, punched and kicked 58-year-old Chen Yulian while she was checking by phone to enter the compound.