Leniency on aged blackmailers hurts social trust
An aged person in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality reported to police that a car knocked him down at a crossroad recently. Yet some witnesses said the senior citizen fell down himself and called him a blackmailer. Later closed-circuit TV footage showed the senior citizen was indeed hit by the car but escaped serious injury only because it was not traveling at great speed.
The unusual reaction of the witnesses shows that people have become prejudiced toward senior citizens involved in accidents because of the tricks employed by a few of their contemporaries to extort money from drivers.
Their impression is influenced by media reports that some senior citizens pretend to be hit by vehicles to extort money from the drivers while others collapse to the ground to blackmail unsuspecting good Samaritans into paying them money or facing legal charges for knocking them down.
