Misplaced reverence

Translated from Beijing Youth Daily

The suspected serial killer and robber Zhou Kehua was shot the morning of Aug 14 in Chongqing. He is believed to have used guns to kill 10 people in three provinces in eight years.

Some people said that Zhou, if he did what he was accused of, was simply fighting against China’s unfair social system and had taken to respectfully calling him “Headshot Brother” on the Internet.

The fact is that police believe Zhou killed civilians for money. The cold-blooded atrocities he stands accused of could only have been committed by an extremely heinous, misanthropic killer. Nobody becomes a hero by killing innocent people callously.

Some extreme netizens have a dangerous tendency to portray anyone who makes trouble for the government as being a fighter for fairness and justice.

In this case, the primary victims were innocent people. These netizens’ reverence for Zhou is a flagrant insult to the people he is accused of killing and to all of society.

Police in the three provinces where his crimes are alleged to have occurred should examine why it took eight years to capture him and plan ways to prevent the bloody acts he stands accused of from occurring again.