Rotten Mango - #244: 4 Women Brutally Beat In Public For Saying No To A Man (Case of Tangshan Restaurant Attack)

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

There is something special about late night with friends. The 4 women sat in the corner of the packed BBQ restaurant and placed their order. Their lives felt perfect. When one friend walked out to take a phone call she heard her friends laughing and joking around. When she came back all she heard were their screams. Her friends were being brutally beaten by 9 strange men for the pure fact that they refused to sleep with them. No bystander tried to help. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I think that there's something special about like these late nights with friends. There is some magic there. I feel like maybe it's even more special after midnight. There's something about sitting around, eating, gossiping, talking. The four women sat at the corner of this packed barbecue restaurant and they placed their order. They're like salivating at this point. Oh, a few beers, please. It almost feels like a celebration of sorts.

They're sitting there laughing, catching up, reminiscing of the past. One of the girls gets a phone call. She's like, oh, sorry, excuse me. Let me go take this outside, I'll be right back. She rushes outside, and like a lot of us, she starts, um, she starts pacing while she's on the phone. And by the time the phone call ends, she realizes that she's out of view from the restaurant. She starts heading back and immediately the hairs on the back of her neck are standing straight up. The once peaceful barbecue restaurant just pure chaos now.

The doorway is blocked by a group of men. They're physically assaulting three defenseless innocent women. Her three best friends are being assaulted inside of the barbecue restaurant. They were being kicked in the face. They were being stomped on their faces, these men were threatening to kill them, drag them out of the restaurant by their hair. She didn't know these people, neither did any of her friends. This was random. They were being randomly attacked by strangers, a group of full-grown men, all four of these girls that were peacefully enjoying their night out

would end up hospitalized by the end of the night. All because one of them had dared, simply had the audacity to reject one of the men. As always, full share notes are going to be listed at RottenMangoPodcast.com. If you guys are watching the video version of this episode over on YouTube at Rotten Mingo We're gonna be sharing some freeze frames of the video Mostly I'll be describing what happens even when I was watching the video bit by bit slowed down just so I could describe in detail Everything that was going on It was so emotionally draining it was so exhausting to watch it was heartbreaking. It just it's incredibly triggering I don't know how else to say it.

So the video in length is going to be posted in the show notes, but I'm just going to warn you. I don't think you should watch it. It's not for the faint of heart. Also, the interesting thing about this video is that basically anyone who posts this video just automatically shut down. Age restricted, flagged. I mean, yes, the obvious argument that it's due to the violent nature of the video. But there is another counter argument of like,

well, this is kind of the life that a lot of women have to deal with. So why is this age restricted when there's not really an age on violence against women? Some argue a whole load of other conspiracies that involve government powers and politics, but we're gonna get into it all. So let's start with the video in question. The video was posted June 10th of 2022. And so this is, you know, maybe like half a year ago. Oh, gosh, almost like a year ago, right? Was this like training on TikTok? I think I heard some people maybe on TikTok talking about it, but I do know that most of the people that I was hearing it from were Chinese.

So I don't know, I'm curious to know, like, did you guys hear about this before and in what depth? The video goes viral, practically everywhere in China. On every platform, like this is all anyone is talking about. Soon, it trickles into the international news cycle, and I just remember like Tiffany Meissister and La being so stressed and I was confused what was going on is this domestic violence. Is it a mob hit? Like, I don't understand. So the guy was hitting a random girl

because she had said no to his sexual advances and they all jumped her. The video is four minutes and eight seconds long and it shows you two different angles of CCTV cameras that are belonging to a local Chinese barbecue restaurant. It's called the Old Man Barbecue. One part of the video shows the CCTV footage from inside the restaurant and the second half shows you the CCTV footage from outside the restaurant.

And there's diners eating outside inside. I mean, there's people everywhere. So with that being said, you see the inside of a small little restaurant. And from what we can see, it looks like a place that seats maybe 48 people. But it's pretty packed. So there's no really entryway.

It's not one of those big grand restaurants where you have a hostess in the front. You just go through these glass double doors and there's a case of beers on one side lined up. And the tables are right in front of you as you walk in. It kind of reminds me of those restaurants in Asia where you walk in and you're like, oh, two people and they just point out a table

or you just sit down anywhere. And I'm gonna try to be as descriptive as possible for my audio listeners, but it's the type of restaurant where you get a little drunk, you start laughing a little too loud. Every single person in the place is gonna hear what you're talking about. And that's fine.

Now, 3am, the restaurant is relatively packed. There's 14 people dining inside. So we have eight men inside and six women. And another about 14 people outside. And just for like context, night market, this is like a little night market thing. It's very common in Asia. Like 3am, 4am, people are hanging out, they're eating drinking beer, they're eating barbecues inside,

and it's very, very common. Yeah, I feel like it's not as common in some parts of America. Yeah, 3am kind of reminds me of like the club scene, the bar scenes, like they're all closing up at 3am, but in Asia, it's very standard for people to get up out of bed at 3am with their friends and go in their PJs to go grab like a little bite and then go back home. So let me break down the inside for you. There's three tables of two male diners each. That accounts for six of the male diners and this is important. Then there's another table with two couples on a double date.

So that accounts for the last two male diners on the inside and two of the women inside the restaurant. And lastly, we have the important table in question in this whole video, which consists of four women, their friends enjoying their night out, the way that they're dressed and that the way that they've done their hair and their makeup, it kind of looks like they were hanging out at home. And they were like, you know what, let's grab a bite to eat. I don't have anything in the fridge. And not that it's important.

But of course with cases like this, you always have the evil, really dumb people that are like, what are they wearing? Well, why were they out clubbing? Okay, let me give you guys what you want. They were wearing jeans and baggy shirts with long cardigans that went past their knees basically to the floor. It doesn't look like this is their last stop after hitting the bars, which by the way, what's the problem with that? But of course, you know, people are going to bring it up. So here you go.

The video starts with the two boyfriends of the couple going up to the cash register to pay for their meal. Their two girlfriends are sitting right in front of the doors waiting. They're staying seated, and they're at the table right next to the four girlfriends. Now, the four girlfriends, we're gonna call them number one, two, three, and four. Girl number one was the first victim. She's kind of the main victim in this whole story. At this point, when the video starts, girl number four had walked out to take a phone call.

So there's only three of the four girlfriends sitting in that little corner table. A man wearing a green jacket, we're gonna call him the green man. He walks into the restaurant, and he and his friends were dining outside on the plastic tables outside the restaurant. So he walks in, and when he does, it's kind of strange.

He has this moment where he creepily stares at the table of girls in the corner, like the three girls. He lingers a little bit too long. He doesn't stand there like Joe Goldberg and just stares at them nonstop, but it's a little... He's like thinking something. Then he walks up to where the two boyfriends are at the cash register. He tells the owner of the restaurant to put a rush on the outside group dishes.

He's like, my friends and I were hungry like hurry up on the dishes. Now, on his way back outside to join his friends, he stops next to girl number one. Stands right next to her, puts his hand on her back. They do not know each other. They are not friends. Imagine a stranger just doing this to you. I mean, I would be offended like you're bursting my personal space like don't touch me. Girl number one, she gets super spooked. She flinches and pushes away what the Chinese call Salty Pigs Hand. So Tiffany had to explain this to me,

but it means unwanted physical touch. Like a Salty Pigs Hand is when you don't want someone to basically sexually harass you. Yeah, sexually harassed. Yeah, sexually harassment. Yeah. And I think that's a very accurate way to describe these people.

These men are just straight up pigs. They're not even human. And she's like, what are you doing? She says that in the video. What are you doing? Now, it's said at this point, he smiles and says something along the lines of, like, I want to do you, like, I want to fuck you.

So it's just so aggressive and disgusting. She responds Are you sick? What's wrong with you? Which is a very appropriate response. The green guy tries to touch her again So she pushes him away and loudly says get lost you pervert The whole restaurant. Here's the entire interaction. So they know exactly what's going on They know that this is a complete stranger. they know that he's sexually harassing her, but Green Jacket gets pissed. He slaps girl number one across the face for refusing to be sexually harassed.

And this is like no regular slap. I'm talking a full force slap, the kind that you could easily knock someone out with. Girl number one, she gets up, recovers from her slap, grabs a beer bottle, a glass beer bottle that was on the table that she was drinking, and tries to smash it onto his face, but he's trying to pin her down back on to her chair by holding like her neck and chest area so she can't get up, she can't fight, he's trying to grab her neck. She ends up missing him with the beer bottle, girl number two her friends sitting right across from her

Get's up grabs her glass beer bottle and Smashes it onto the back of green jacket guy's head. She just wants to protect her friend Green jacket guy turns around just full of rage Pushes girl number two so hard that she falls back on the table next to her And so this is where the two couples were sitting, but they had already gotten up when the assault started. So the table is pretty empty. Girl number two gets pushed so hard she falls,

hits the back of her head on the edge of the table, falls completely to the ground. She's like on the floor. You can see the two couples standing there just watching in horror and the boyfriends there like trying to cover cover their girlfriends cuz I mean think about it out of the six girls in the restaurant Three of them are being actively attacked right now for no reason Meanwhile the other men in the restaurant Remember there's like six of them that didn't come with you know a girlfriend or anything

There's just they're not even standing. They're just sitting and watching They haven't gotten up. They haven't pulled out their phones to call someone, they're just kind of sitting and staring. The green jacket guy stands over girl number two, who is now on the ground and starts grabbing these plates from the empty table next to him and smashing it down onto girl number two. The female boss tries to intervene, but it's kind of too late. You know, after hearing the commotion, Green Jacket man's friends run into the restaurant and they seem ready to fight. Green Jacket guys posse consists of seven pigs and two women. It genuinely seems like they do this often because when they hear that commotion and they see through the glass windows that Green Jacket guy is beating someone up, they don't even hesitate.

They don't even hesitate. They don't know what's going on. One of them even grabs a chair on the way to throw it at someone, we're going to get into that. Now, let's talk about a few key players. There is a guy that is often referred to as the boy shirt guy online. He's wearing this black shirt from the streetwear company Boy London and it just has these really intense wings on the back that are just really showcased

in this video. And it says boy in big bold letters, but he's not a minor. He's not a boy. He's a full grown man. So boy shirt dude is like the henchmen of the group. He jumps into the restaurant and without even trying to figure out assess the situation, figure out what's going on. He immediately starts beating this woman up.

He starts kicking girl number two who's going on. He immediately starts beating this woman up. He starts kicking girl number two who's still on the ground. He starts reaching for whatever is in his vicinity so he can slam them down on to her. And now entering to the fight, girl number three, their other friend, she rushes over. She protects girl number two who's on the ground. She's trying to shield her friend with her own body. Meanwhile, nobody else in the restaurant is getting up to help. Nobody's doing anything.

All these full grown men are sitting there watching the assault take place. And again, they heard everything that went on. So it's not a situation. Even if you knew there's really no excuseable situation for this, but you don't even have the excuse of like, I had no idea what was going on.

Like it's just like so sudden. You knew what was going on. So the boy shirt guy is full on throwing a violent, rage-fueled temper tantrum at this point. He starts screaming, mother fucker, I'll beat you up. And then he kicks girl number two, who's still on the ground. At this point, two more of Green Jacket Guy's friends come in, a guy in a white shirt and a guy with a hat,

along with a girl in a skirt. The girl in the skirt was the one that actually brought a literal chair from the outside. Like you see her on the CCTV run in with a chair. Like she on her way in, she just grabbed the chair and ran. Like she's ready to throw it. Ready to smash someone with it like it's insane It's like their reflex is let's go. Yeah, they're reflexes violence and just exactly

Again, it seems like a normal night out So the white shirt guy grabs the chair as well from outside and smashes it on to girl number two and girl number three Girl number three gets hit because she has been Protectively hovering over her friend who still hasn't been able to get up from the ground. Now this pisses off boy shirt guy who screams, beta-rop. And he's pointing at the two girls.

At this point, the guy in the hat seems to be the only one in the entire restaurant that tries to do something. He tries to tell his friends, let it go, like leave it alone. Let's go. Green jacket guy gets pulled off the two girls on the floor by his friend, and that's when he turns around and he makes eye contact with girl number one who was behind him trying to get to her friends to save them. And he decides that his anger is not over. He grabs her by the hair, punches her in the head. So imagine with his left hand,

he's holding her head in place with his hand and then just punching her with his right hand. She tries to cover her head with both of her arms and the boss is trying to diffuse the situation before it gets any worse, but I mean, there's really no stopping these people. Meanwhile, three tables of full grown men are still sitting and watching. None of them have even stood up.

The two couples are cowering nearby. They seem genuinely terrified of what's going on. And once the green jacket guy, like the leader of this group, brings his attention back to girl number one, the rest of his little minions they join him. They all start dragging girl number one out by the hair. They're literally grabbing fistfuls of her hair, twisting it, and then yanking her head outside. One of the guys pushes girl number one down at one point, and it ends up dragging green jacket guy down with her. So he's on the floor.

And I think that, okay, I think that this is when things start escalating more. This is my speculation. I do think that the fact that they're trying to take her outside is already escalation enough, but the fact that he seems like someone who has an incredibly fragile ego and is like a sad excuse for a human and he's embarrassed by falling during this fight with a girl, just like how he was embarrassed that she

had rejected him, he was embarrassed that she had rejected a mise en bars to falling. So he starts amping up the torture. The three guys drag girl number one out on the ground outside by her hair. And they're all yelling, get out here, mother fucker, get out here. At the same time, girl number four who had walked out to take the phone call, she didn't see any of this. She didn't see her friend get pushed onto the ground. She didn't see her friend shielding her with her own body. she didn't see any of this. She didn't see her friend get pushed onto the ground,

she didn't see her friend shielding her with her own body, she didn't see any of the sexual harassment, she literally was on the phone, she comes back, and she's hit with this sight of three of her friends being beaten up by a group of strange men. Men she had never seen before. Remember girl number three, who is shielding girl number two with her own body?

She immediately gets up, rushes out, and tries to help girl number three who is shielding girl number two with her own body. She immediately gets up, rushes out and tries to help girl number one. One of the guys from the group tries to yell at her and stop her from going out and he's like, you stay here. It feels like he's this minion that's going to be making sure nobody in the inside of the restaurant tries to plot against them or call the cops. So he tells her to stay. She doesn't listen. Girl number three is kind of

um, I don't want to say a hero in this story, but she definitely was just non-stop trying to help her friends. Like she's just running from one friend to another friend to another friend trying to shield them. The guy that was yelling at her not to go outside rushes out to follow her and you can hear girl number one screaming outside. All the while, the other so-called men inside the restaurant, they're all just sitting there. They haven't gotten involved. They could have all gathered together and easily overpowered the perpetrators or at least have given them thought, but no, they just sat there. So they get outside. And inside, one of the girls from the two couples tells girl number two who's still on the ground. remember she had been knocked on the ground

Okay, call the police while they're outside Girl number two grabs his her phone and rushes out the other couple had managed to sneak out of the restaurant So one of the two double-daters are outside and you can see on video the boyfriend is comforting the girlfriend And it looks like she's literally shaking in fear. He's trying to hold her calm her down and the saddest part of all of this out of all the restaurant dinners. The two women have the most to lose. You know, these two strange women

that it's a part of the couples, they are the most terrified in face of this. Because this is clear as day violence against women. This is gender-based violence. Like, don't even try to lie. But the tiny, tiny little girlfriend tries to break free from her boyfriend's arms and tries to run towards the girls to help them. And her boyfriend grabs her by the arm, drags her back to him,

and starts dragging her away from the restaurant out of CCTV view. You can even see that he has to physically drag her away because her feet are dragging. Like, she doesn't wanna leave. He's dragging her away. The girlfriend is really the only stranger, the only bystander that tries to intervene, that tries to help.

There is another table of diners outside and they just stand up to watch what's going on and eventually they leave. They do nothing to stop this either. So now, girl number one is thrown on the ground outside. She's already been dragged around the concrete steps by her hair. And when she's laying on her back on the cold street,

green jacket guy stomps directly on her chest. And she's very small. She's just physically in stature. She's very tiny. She's very petite. Green jacket guy is a little bit only heavier side. Grown number four, the one that was on the phone tries to protect her friend, so she punches green jacket guy. And he turns around and he slaps her so hard that she loses balance

and falls back. And you can hear this loud thud on the CCTV video and her head smashes onto the concrete steps that we were leading up to the restaurant. So, girl number three, the one that's going around protecting all of her friends. She rushes to comfort girl number four who had just hit her head. And the white shirt guy, I don't know what's wrong with these people. He decides, girl number three needs to be taught a lesson for comforting her friend. He walks over, he goes out of his way to walk over to the two girls on the concrete steps and screams, the fuck are you doing, huh? And he tries to slap

girl number three, but he misses. And so he's embarrassed. Walks back over to Green Jacket Guy, who is stomping on girl number one's face directly on her face while she's lying defenseless and unmoving on the ground. And then the green shirt guy walked silver to the table that he and his friends were eating at, grabs the glass beer bottle and is ready to smash it on girl number one's head. Now remember Hat Guy from inside the restaurant who is trying to break up the fight, he's trying to hold up the green jacket guy again, he's trying to diffuse the situation. Now, the other couple in the restaurant and the owner, they rush out and it seems like the owner is confused

on what to do. That's kind of like what her body language tells me. She's not necessarily rushed and panicked and trying to scramble together. It just looks like she's assessing it and she herself is scared and confused and she doesn't really know what to do. She's probably in her 50s like older woman.

Yeah, she's an older woman. So she's just like, what the hell is going on? Now, the couple, they're trying to slowly leave, right? And they get yelled at. The white shirt guy screams, get back in there, back into the restaurant. But they slowly inch off while the whole commotion's going on and they run off.

Meanwhile, girl number one is trying to get back up and green man pulls her up by her shirt. His friends are trying to defuse the situation. They're like holding on to him at this point saying things like, let's not waste our time, let's go, let's just leave her. She's not worth it. And I think there was something about the way that all of his friends were telling him to leave it alone.

They were telling him to not do it. I feel like he didn't like that. I feel like he decides, I'm going to show them that I make my own decisions. He was picking her up at one point, but he throws her back on the ground, on her back and kicks her directly in the head one more time. Almost as this defiant see, I do what I want. Some of the other guys start going back into beating girl number one at this point. Now, a girl from that group, a girl from the pigs group, presumably one of their guys girlfriends, runs up to the, remember the girl that brought in

the chair? So what had happened was she thought that they were fighting a guy inside. So she brought in this chair and then realized that the guys were beating up a girl. And then she like put the chair down, but another guy grabbed it and threw it on one of the girls. But I guess she didn't want to fight one of the girls. So she runs up now and is trying to break them up. She's like, come on, she's pulling on the white shirt guy. Like, come on, stop.

Or, you know, it's time. This is her friend. These are the people that she came out to eat with. The white shirt guy turns around and slaps her across the face. And I mean, he doesn't with so much force that she stumbles back a few paces and he points his finger at her like he's about to yell something at her, he's about to curse her out,

but instead he takes a moment. I mean, the fact that he had to stare at her for that long of a moment is kind of alarming, but he takes a moment, registers her face and is like, oh my God, I just slapped my friend. So this guy thought that he had slapped one of girl number one's friends who were trying to pull him off of their friend. And it took him a second, even after staring at this girl's face, that that

wasn't the case that he had slapped his own friend. So you see him on the camera while there's a whole commotion going outside, going to hug his friend and he's apologizing like, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Crazy. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. These are not humans. Like, where's your brain? Like, what they remind me of are just people that don't think have no brains, no souls, no hearts, and they're just like brute violence. And just as quickly as that happens, he goes back to join his boys to beat up

girl number one some more. Meanwhile, Green Jacket guy has been busy. He had grabbed girl number one by the hair, so in his left hand, he's holding her hair, keeping her head in place, and then with his other hand, he's just slapping her again and again and again. And the motion that I'm doing, I know it just seems like he's slapping her like, wake up. No, no, like we've talked about this guy's slap. I mean, it's enough to bring people down. He's knocking people out. People are losing

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girl number one. Literally, this whole time all she's doing is running from friend to friend to friend. So the boy in the white shirt that had just slapped his own friend decides to take over while green man gets some rest because I don't know, I guess they're getting tired. He grabs girl number one by the hair

and starts dragging her away from the restaurant, away from cameras. And he's slamming her onto the ground multiple times long the way. He finally throws her on the ground near their table and kicks her another three times. Finally, one of the guys in the group screams at his friends, let's go everyone, like let's all stop, come on, let's go. I think it was registering at least his pee brain that if they kept going, someone was

going to die that night. Green Jacket Guy grabs another glass beer bottle from the table and you can hear someone screaming, stop hitting her! But he doesn't. He grabs another beer bottle, starts dragging girl number one even further away from the restaurant, further away from the restaurant further away from cameras At this point both girl number three and girl number four are standing next to girl number one Girl number three is on her phone probably calling the police and girl number four

This is the one that had went to go get that phone call, right? It looks like she's recording something probably for evidence the boy shirt man Sees her recording walk silver slaps her across the face so hard, she almost loses balance again, and this time she runs into the little alleyway next to the restaurant for safety. The whole group sees this, and I think that they imagine that she has some sort of video

that they need to delete, so they start running after her. There is no CCTV in that alleyway. Girl number three helps Girl number one sit up, and she realizes that her friend Girl number four is getting chased into the alleyway, so she runs into the alleyway. And you can hear these two girls crying and screaming from the alleyway where there are no cameras. Girl number one finds all the strength she has, gets up, and rushes into the alleyway to save her friends

We also see green jacket man come back out of the alleyway and Goes to grab another beer bottle from the table and walks back into the alleyway He's screaming catch her catch her And you just hear screams coming from the alleyway and we don't really see what's going on in there. Because of that, there's going to be a lot of conspiracies on what happened in that alleyway. But we do know that after the assaults continued in the alleyway, the perpetrators, they all ran off.

Girl number one was left laying in the alleyway, unable to move. Witnesses said that all she did was lay there and weekly say, it hurts. Her clothes were pretty bloody. Her face was basically unrecognizable. Paramedics arrived at the scene and they bandaged her wounds for 10 minutes before lifting her into the ambulance. All four girls were hospitalized. Two were severely wounded and the other two were slightly wounded. I'm gonna have the picture of girl number one when she was brought into the hospital,

but basically her entire head is bandaged, and you can see that her whole face is swollen. Just imagine like her eyes are so swollen that she can't even open them. There's blood everywhere. Her face is covered with blood. The zipper of her pants are open, and that's the video that enraged practically

every single woman and a lot of men, not just in China but everywhere. I mean, the whole video is so painful to watch, but the fact that none of these full grown men that are also heavy in stature that could have all came together to make sure nobody got hurt, the fact that they all stood there, just watching the assaults of these innocent women take place. The fact that the only people that ever tried to physically break up the fight were all fellow women. I mean, it confirmed in a lot of people's minds what they were already thinking. And I think, I don't know if it was necessarily heartbreaking when I saw the video. I think it was more of like, just anger, pure anger.

Like even now, I mean, I don't know, it's like, I wanna cry, I'm so sad, it's more like, I'm so angry I wanna cry. Especially friend number three, I mean, she protected her friends over and over and over again. And then the girlfriend that was so terrified, you could see her shaking and fear for these strangers that she had never seen before.

She wants to save them. And even then, she's the only one that tries to run it and help. It was her boyfriend that dragged her away. And I'm not saying what she was doing with smart. I'm not saying she should have jumped in there because I think that she too would have become a victim, but the fact that she was one of the only few people that tried to stop these people, like, she later said, I can't sleep at night, I'll

just keep thinking to myself, why didn't I help them other than just calling the police? Everyone else just watched as the woman were kicked, stomped on, slapped, punched, and had their faces smashed with glass bottles, All because one of them refused to be sexually harassed. So yeah, of course the video goes viral. It's gonna spark international outrage. People were so upset. Chinese netizens were taking the social media to ask, how is this sort of thing happening in 2022?

People were saying all of this could have happened to me. I mean, it could have happened to any one of us. You know, people always say, why were you out drinking at 3 a. I mean, it could have happened to any one of us. People always say, why were you out drinking at 3 a.m. We'll don't go clubbing at 3 a.m. then don't do this. These are activities everybody does. They were saying authorities need to crack down on stuff like this, on gender-based violence.

We can't even enjoy a night out with friends without being beaten to death. And one quote that kept coming up over and over and over again was that not all men are violent, but all women live in fear of violence. I think another reason that people were getting so heated about this video. I mean, first of all, can you blame them? The video itself is one of the most disgusting, violent things I've seen in a while, but some people were defending these men.

Some people literally, I don't even know if I can call them people, I don't even want to call them netizens, like I don't even know if I can call them people, I don't even wanna call them netizens, like I don't even, they wrote, geez if the girl in white, girl number one, if she didn't overreact so much to his advances, they wouldn't have been beaten to that extent. Another one wrote, it takes two to tango, she provoked him first.

Someone literally just, I don't even know how they had the consciousness to type this. The man got drunk, he didn't mean to. Someone wrote she hid him with a beer bottle, she kind of deserved it. In this one, I think is such an insidious one, but she's out at 3 a.m. Someone else blamed her for her weak physical state compared to the meaty men. They didn't blame the men for picking on someone that wasn't their own size.

Instead, they wrote, she resisted his advances, knowing that she couldn't defend herself. It wouldn't have been such a big deal if she had obeyed. Why did she have to embarrass him so loudly in the restaurant? So basically, he sexually harassed her, and they wanted her to be like, please stop. And for some reason, I mean, this one is crazy, but someone wrote, I don't even know this.

To me, when I read it, it felt like one of the darkest comments. The woman is no longer in critical condition. Let it go. Does this person just think like women have five second memories and no feelings? We have no ability to hold on to trauma and PTSD, like let justice go.

So we have to die for something to happen. And the angry part was there were a few pick me online too. One woman wrote, the guy probably just wanted her wee chat, which is like her messaging app ID. If she didn't want to give it to him, she could have just nicely said no. Instead she yelled at him in front of everyone, and that's why he got so angry. Like as girls girls we just have to be a little bit more considerate of

guys egos when they're in front of a lot of people. The internet went into an utter frenzy. Now to be fair, these horrible responses were the weaker of the voices online. They were the smaller group, but it was infuriating that they even existed. Even some news outlets initially reported the video, and instead of stating that the man sexually harassed the girl, they were downplaying it. They were saying things like, he tried to pick her up. He tried to hit on her.

No, he sexually harassed her. He gave her an unwanted physical touch without her consent, that sexual harassment. I think women were just getting sick of it. Instead of condemning men who were violent towards women, society likes to find reasons that the women in question deserved it. And it happens all the time, in practically every single case, every case, every domestic violence case, are you kidding? Like it happens during trial in America. Was she drunk? Was she alone? Why was she out-to-late?

What was she wearing? Why did she post such provocative things on social media? Why did she reject him so meanly? Why didn't she just say no? Oh, she did? Well, why didn't she say it nicer? In this video was living proof for women that it didn't matter like none of this matters Watch the video the only thing that happened was girl number one refused to be sexually harassed She wasn't at the clubs. She wasn't drunk She wasn't doing all these things, not that it matters, but here you go.

This is the scenario you've all been waiting for. We've been trying to tell you all along. So this led to four separate women being brutally beaten. Within a day or two, the town that this took place in, which is Tangshan, became one of the safest towns in all of China. Police officers were swarming the town. The central government had sent in brigades of armed police.

I don't think I've ever seen this much police presence even when like a president visits, it's insane. And Tangshan has a lot of these outdoor night markets. They have a lot of restaurants with outdoor seating. These armed police officers, they look more like a riot police or SWAT police so they've got the riot defense boards, they're wearing all black.

They would just stand right next to tables that didn't have any men and that were just women dining out, like 7 p.m. Just standing next to them to make sure, I don't know, they don't get randomly beat up. Some of the officers even had pieces of paper taped onto their backs that said, if you need help, just let us know. The whole thing was so bizarre, Chinese netizens were super

annoyed. The general consensus on Chinese social media was, what's going on? This feels like it's all for show. This does not solve any real problems. It feels like the government is trying to save face. And be like, look, we care so much. We're sending in SWAT teams. Another person wrote, they deal with a group of pigs by sending an army of pigs into town? Yeah. There were police officers with megathones

that would yell into outdoor diners' faces, no beating aloud, especially a woman. Another one yelled into the megaphone, ladies, let your husband's protect you. Make sure to call your husband's to come join you for dinner. Don't talk to strangers, don't confront strangers, and if there's still problems, call the police. Chinese netizens were further enraged by these messages. They're like, that is not what we're talking about. That is not what we're asking for. Let's talk about the incident in question. Who are these violent criminals where they caught? And to give you context, I need to take it back a little bit to something called the kitchen knife gang. A lot of people, not just women, are terrified of, well, they were terrified of the kitchen knife gang

back in Tangshan. It's a peculiar name for a gang, if I'm being honest with you, but at least it's rather straightforward. Many years ago in the late 70s, Tangshan had one of the worst earthquakes China had ever seen. Actually, I believe it was the worst earthquake. So more than 300,000 lives were lost in the earthquake. 93% of residential buildings in Tangshan

were completely destroyed. Like, think of all the people who lost their lives, lost their loved ones, lost everything. The entire city was just in shambles. The only reason Tangshan is what it is today is because a lot of the residents refuse to leave and they built the city back up, like worked, tooth and nail, and fought for their lives. And the whole country of China, they rallied around Tang Shen and tried to help to the best of their

abilities. Like every major city were sending in their own truckloads of supplies, of food, of medical help volunteers were coming. And I mean, genuinely it was a moment where I feel like the country was united. Other materials to help rebuild residential buildings were being donated, commercial offices had to be rebuilt. Just think about the beginning stages of this, though. It's chaos. There's no order to build one building. That's chaos. Now think of it as all these major cities are bringing their own volunteers, their own supplies and to coordinate all of this. I mean, this type of catastrophe itself was unprecedented. A bunch of young men were like,

okay, well, there's no order. So there's probably no law. They decide now is the time to take advantage of the victims of the earthquake. The victims of the earthquake, that's who they're targeting. They start flowing in from neighboring cities to start committing crimes. These are like younger kids, I want to say late teenagers, early 20s, primarily predominantly men, and they're stealing from the people of Tang Shen.

Who's going to stop them? The police have been wiped out. They're too busy trying to save lives. Literally, they felt like Tang Shen was basically a free-for-all town. And that's how the kitchen knife gang was formed. A bunch of guys came to Tang Shen and they were notorious for carrying around

these green sacks filled with kitchen knives. And they wreaked havoc on this already demolished broken town. So they would just have this green sack and every time someone saw a green sack, they're like, there's a kitchen knife in there and they were not afraid to use it. The gang of all... And Chinese kitchen knife is basically a rectangle block. Yeah, it's like a big heavy thing. Like you can use it to basically butcher any meat and bones and everything.

Yeah, it's, if you see the way that it's used, a lot of the Chinese style kitchen knives are used to break bones on animals apart, not animals, but you get it on a meat. We can use that knife for anything. You can basically butcher a bone if you want to. It's a heavy duty knife, not the skinny knife. Yeah, where you have to like really go back and forth.

Yeah. So eventually the gang evolves into having six separate subsets. Now, locals had no idea how to distinguish between the different subsets. I mean, I think even in the US with all the gang activity that there is here, I genuinely don't know how to differentiate between the subsets of a gang.

They just knew that anyone in the streets with a green sack or any kind of sack or holding a rectangular chopping kitchen knife because sometimes they would just walk around with it. They were not to be messed with. Look, gang violence is terrifying. We've covered a few cases. The most recent one I'm gonna link up below, but a young girl was killed just for wearing the color red. She was assaulted by a literal gang and then killed by a bunch of gang members. It was... Gang violence is no joke. But what made the kitchen knife gang even more terrifying was that they had no hierarchy. Again, I'm not saying some gangs are better than others. All gangs, all gang

violence, terrifying it ruins lives. But hierarchies are put in place to make sure that people are following their own little moral code. Each gang has their own moral codes. Some gangs don't mess with family members of rival gangs. Some gangs don't mess with children. You know, everybody has their own little standing. There's someone in charge that can dictate if what you did is bad too far, not good enough. So there's something there. With the kitchen knife gang, they had no rules. So people would just be like, okay, now something there. With the kitchen knife gang, they had no rules. So people would just be like, okay, now I'm part of the kitchen knife gang, I'm gonna go out and do whatever I want. It was a nightmare. I think at its peak, there were about five

to six hundred members that were in the gang in the city of Tangshan. And that's a lot of people for a city that had just witnessed an earthquake where people are gone. These five to six hundred evil gang members would go around picking fights, robbing people, racketeering, which racketeering is basically forcing businesses and residents to pay them a monthly, weekly, daily fee just to stay alive. They would women, threaten people, light people's houses on fire, beat people until they were nearly brain dead. Like, that's what they did.

They were unemployed and they did this for a living. Who needs a job when you can walk into a restaurant or order everything on the menu, have it set out in front of you like you're some sort of king of westeros, and then at the end you place a green sack of kitchen knives at the table. You laugh with your buddies, you make some eye contact with the owner, and you glance at your knife, you own knife sack, you glance back at the owner, before you all just casually walk out. Like the owners were too scared to ask them to pay, they were too scared to report them

to the police. I mean, even if they did, nothing happened, so why brand yourself as a snitch? You were just grateful that they were gone. Because sometimes for a fun, they would smash people's entire businesses apart. They would break their windows, trash the entire place, go to the back, rip everything off the walls. You were just glad to have been made it out alive.

Sometimes the owners would be forced to thank them for coming and escort them out of the restaurant like they were some VIP customers. It was a refic. And then these gang members, they would go into whatever store that they wanted and leave with whatever they pleased. Let's say they walk into a furniture store. They spot a new fridge that they want for their house.

They would even have the owner deliver it because it was too heavy for them to carry home. The owners would be too scared to say no. It got so bad. Women in Tungshan did not go out alone, even in the middle of the day. There were countless stories of girls being dragged into alleyways being assaulted. And if they came home to tell their families what happened, there was nothing they could do. The families were just thankful that their daughter was alive.

They would say things like, we have to let it go. We can't mess with the kitchen knife gang. And if anyone outside of Tang Shen heard this, they might scream like, okay, I'm getting so frustrated, just call the cops. What are you guys doing? Just tell someone what's going on. This is why that didn't work. The gang was so powerful, the cops were terrified of them.

A few years after the earthquake, at the gang's peak, a young teenage girl was being beaten and chased by a gang member. She ran straight for the police station. She burst into the door, and the gang member, Zau, he ran in after her. He had no fear. He runs into the police station, drags her onto the ground in the middle of the police station floor, and continues beating her. Most of the police just stood there and watched. They were too scared to stop him. There was one officer who did take initiative. He was the only one that did his job. He arrested Zhao and his entire life fell apart the minute he arrested the gang member. His family was threatened. He couldn't live at home. He was suspended from the police force.

He had to live inside the police station. It was insane. The police chief also had to live in the police station because his entire house was burned to the ground by the gang members for letting his officer arrest Zhao. Three other police officers were beaten for their involvement in making a rightful arrest. So things were not looking good. The gang members are getting off on this.

They are feeling unstoppable, even the police are scared of us. In fact, the gangs had so much power, they started targeting supply trucks. So this is all going on in the middle of a natural disaster. The Chinese government and other big cities are sending in supplies by the truckloads, food, material, building material to help the people of Tangshan. The gang members start setting up these checkpoints into the city where they demand that these volunteer supply trucks pay them a fee to enter the city.

There were several instances where the supply vans were robbed by the kitchen knife gangs. And if any of the volunteers or workers that are like, hey, I'm just here to drop off free food for people, they would be stabbed if they didn't agree to pay this little protection money. Some of the workers were so terrified. Anytime they heard any noises, they would just grab random shovels and try to protect themselves. If they did not pay, the kitchen knife would find where they were staying in tungshan that night, and they would smash the windows of their trucks, smash the windows of whatever house or hotel they were staying at, and throw in lit firecrackers into where

they were sleeping. It was so bad, these volunteers were fleeting tungshan in the middle of the night. I mean, yeah, they want to help the locals, all of China wanted to, but that doesn't mean that they want to die. It was so unsafe in the city of Tangshan that the residents were so scared. They wanted to find some way to defend themselves. So for a while, the most valuable supply in all of Tangshan was ironically kitchen knives. They were sold out for a really long time. Yeah, a lot of the residents were like, I got to buy kitchen knives to defend myself. This was a victory for the gangs.

They proudly proclaimed themselves the top gang in northern China. They were really proud of it. So you could say, they got a little bit cocky. And that would later just bite them on the neck. Yeah, bite them on the neck. The kitchen knife gang was about to be shut down by the government. And it all started when two members of the gang were on a bus. They're robbing people, harassing girls, sexually harassing girls, and a man comes up to them and grabs

them by the arm. And he's physically strong. His grip is tight. And he gets in their face and just says, just stop now. The two gang members are about to do something. But they look behind that man who's holding their arm and realize that they're outnumbered. The guy that had stopped them, his name is Lou, and he's a soldier. His comrades were on the bus with him. Okay, we're talking like soldiers, people who are trained in combat. There was nothing that these two just violent knife wielding low-grade criminals. I mean, what were they going to do?

Fight these soldiers? They were military. These are just two losers with knives. So they sit down, but they're trying to save face, which means I'm trying to save yourself from the embarrassment, and they yell in front of everyone on the bus. Yeah, well, see after getting off the bus. Leo didn't think much of it. He thought they were again just saving face, trying to seem cool in front of the other bus

goers, but he gets off the bus, starts walking towards the military camp at night, and out of nowhere he feels stinging on his shoulder and this hot liquid just coating his shirt. The gang members had run up behind him, stabbed him in the shoulder a few times, and ran off. He fell down in a pool of blood right at the gates of the military camp. The gang members were so bauzy, they attacked a soldier in front of the military camp. The central government was going to take that very personally. But still then, like, then does that mean the other people doesn't matter? The people of the city doesn't matter? It takes you to hurt a soldier to really

do something about it? Yeah, so I think that's the problem with most governments is that you have to embarrass them for them to care. And when you attack a soldier basically on base, you're embarrassing the power of the government. The government was like, okay, yeah, we gotta do something. Things are getting out of control. So they launched a full-scale campaign to crack down on gang violence

and they were gonna make an example out of Tung Shen. The government came up and they gathered all the gang members in Tang Shen. They picked 50 of the worst offenders. They lined them all up. They were forced to wear these giant posters hanging from their necks with their name and they're crime listed in big bold letters. So you would see men walking around with murder just on their chest like a squire letter. They were lined up in a busy part of Tangshan and publicly executed. Thousands of Tangshan locals gathered to watch. It was a really happy day for the residents. Yeah,

well, most of the residents. And I'm not going to say that I agree with this, but I'm just starting you know that the locals, they had been scared, they had been murdered, assaulted, beaten. Their lives were utter health for so long because after the earthquake, they were being preyed upon by young criminals who decided that they were going to take advantage of them. So none of the locals were crying for the lives that were lost that day. But it did result in a lot of conversations around China. The average age of those that were executed were 20 years old. Some felt like the government could rehabilitate these quote kids that they could be reformed. They had just been

lost. They were undereducated. That there were a plethora of reasons that they turned out the way that they did, and it's not necessarily all their fault. Some people thought, will you take a life, you know, you do the crime, you pay the time. Others felt like, yeah, well, nobody told them to insult and murder. I don't know. Okay, it's a huge debate. I'm going to leave it up for you guys to come up with your own opinion, but I will say that the town ended up recovering afterwards because everyone was terrified of committing crimes in Tangshan after that. The economy was back on the mend, residents were recovering,

infrastructure was coming back together, and it's not like gang violence completely sees to exist after the execution day, but over the next year or so, the police arrested more than 600 more gang members and punish them according to their crimes. Like, they were, they were coming in heavy into Tang Shen. So, this is all to tell you that Tangshan has a very complicated history with gangs and gang violence and gangs controlling the police and the local officials. And this is all going to come into play in a second.

So the first thing that Nendezan started to bring up with this video went viral. Were speculations of, are these gang members? Because, hey, this video is in tungshen, which in everybody's minds, they remember the executions, they remember tungshen getting cracked down on for gang violence. And these people in the video, they're so blatant in their violence,

they're so arrogant, they almost have this attitude of that they can do anything and get away with it. They don't even seem that drunk, they're not stumbling about. This doesn't seem like someone who's just so angry that he committed this crime Not that any of these are excuses. It was just strange the ball-ziness the Audacity of the whole thing. So for a while is speculation and I would say that most people were under the belief that these were just evil guys But maybe Tang Shen is not run by the gangs, right? Cause that's decades ago, they're all gone now, right?

Do you know what Fritor is? So, term I just learned too. I never knew this term, your sister told me. And I was like, that's a term we have. Just like Fritor, that's what this whole case is to us. I was like Fritor. It's a term that's used to reference something that becomes more terrifying the longer you think about it

It's often compared to when scenes and movies you have the protagonist sitting on a chair And they're smiling at the end and then they slowly realize the truth and their smile fades and then it's replaced by this unmistakable face of pure terror and then the screen fades to black. That's the feeling of fridge war That's what netizens started to feel about this case. Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in them. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No. Who's gonna catch us?

What a police. It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers, and I know how to do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat? 100% I saved my soul just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set, an Autosy Originals documentary podcast series available now in the

Autosy app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy man but I love being a dirty mother f***er. All because a police officer that arrived at the scene of the crime was interviewed. And he said during the interview, he, the assault took place at 240 in the morning, June 6, 2022. The police received their first phone call about the fight at 241 in the morning. They got there at 246 in the morning, so five minutes. That seems like a fast response time. They stated that the offenders fled the scene

when they arrived. Victims were brought into the hospital by 246 AM. But it was later revealed in an official police report that the police didn't actually get to the restaurant until 309 a.m. So instead of two what 246? Yeah, it's 23 minutes after when he said they arrived, which is 246 a.m. Now, the whole thing does it really matter what this officer remembers versus what the

police are saying. I don't really know, even though the 23 minute gap is pretty significant and they're being very specific with their times, like the officer that was interviewed was like 246, oh yeah, it wasn't just like, oh, we got there around like five minutes later. He was very specific with their time. So people were just confused how to get that confused. But more than that, would this draw attention to was people did some mapping.

The police station is a little over half a mile from the restaurant. So if they got that, that's really close. Like five minutes drive. Yeah, you could probably run too. So, okay, you got the first call at 241. Why would the journey take nearly 30 minutes for the police to show up? It's 3 a.m. there's no traffic.

Yeah, like the whole thing was strange. People just felt like maybe the police don't show up to these fights because they know It's the gangs that are involved in the fights and they want to give them time to leave Maybe the gangs are still running the police station where they're being paid off Maybe that's why they don't respond. They know it's the gangs and they want to get their late so they could be like Oh, no, we didn't see anything and then try to sweep it under the rug and hope that everybody forgets about it Oh no, we didn't see anything and then try to sweep it under the rug and hope that everybody forgets about it. Side note, to make matters worse and fuel these rumors even more is that later the police

released some reports about this case. And they, they released a report showing the first calls that were coming into the station about this incident. And remember how one of the victims had called the police herself? They did not censor their report, meaning the caller's phone number, one of the victims, and her information was now all over the internet. Effectively, the police had doxed a victim. And if these perpetrators were gang-related, I just can't even imagine how incredibly

reckless and criminal that is. The speculations online were growing rampant. The police are involved, like the police are controlled by the gangs. Two main perpetrators were arrested soon after. Chen Ji-she and Lu-Tao. Okay, let's call them CJ and LT. CJ is the green jacket guy. And let's talk about him first.

He's like the ringleader. He's the one that's actually harassed victim one. He's 41 years old, and he's got quite the complicated background. If you look at his resume, he would tell you that he's a manager of a fish farm in Tangshan. But if you actually spend a day with him, you realize very pretty quickly, he does not really work with fish. He mainly dabbled in finance-related crimes, violence, he's constantly having problems with the law. Shockingly, he has a wife and kids.

He's a daughter. And it's not like he compartmentalized. It's not like he lived these two separate lives. The guy was constantly out cheating on his wife, and I think that she knew what was going on. CJ is officially listed in China as a dishonest person. Okay, so this is fascinating. But China is interesting.

They have something called social credit, where you know how in the US, you have your criminal charges that follow you around, and maybe your credit score. Like whether you're a registered sex offender or not, whether you're a felon or not, these are gonna follow you when you apply for a job, when you apply for housing, when you're getting your passport,

they're just always there. They're making your life rather difficult. But in most cases, it's not an every aspect of your life. Like when you check into a hotel room, they're not going to know that you're a criminal. They're not going to do a full background check. China takes it 10 steps further. Let's say you have bad social credit

because you're in some debt. The government can restrict you from spending. Everything is so connected by your ID and you can't really do anything without your ID. And I'm not talking in the general sense of like, yeah, you have a ton of debt. It's going to be really hard for you to get a loan from a bank, you know? That's normal. In China, everything is connected. So if you book a hotel, you book a plane ticket, you buy a big ticket item like a new sofa, the government can know about it. They're going to know about it and they're going to think, you're spending more than you should.

So if you're in a lot of debt, the government can actually restrict you. So you can't buy first-class tickets on airlines, business class tickets on trains, airlines, you can't buy premium economy tickets with your ID because you're in debt. You can't buy extra leg room on a train. You can't buy a presidential suite in a hotel.

They're like, you're in debt. You don't need to live in a five star fancy hotel. So we're not even going to let you spend money. They don't let you spend a ton of money at nightclubs or even at golf courses. You're flagged from buying real estate or even buying high and furniture for your house. You can't even purchase a car unless you can somehow prove it's for your business. The government can restrict you from traveling or even sending your kids to like these privileged private schools.

Basically, they can restrict you from anything that they deem unnecessary for basic life and work expenses and it's honestly wild. So this guy, he's on the dishonest list. All of his accounting was frozen, like all of his electronic bank accounts all frozen because they're like, you're a dishonest person, you're gonna try to scam someone. So CJ is categorized as that. And spoiler alert, he's not a fish farmer. He was a soccer or football, depending on where you live.

He was a soccer gambling ring orchestrator. Apparently he made a killing at not this most recent World Cup because he was in prison, but the one prior, so four years ago. LT, the other guy that was initially arrested, he was the man wearing the white shirt. CJ is like LT's little mentor. They had history. In 2015, both of them were involved in a case where they beat a man nearly to death.

They locked him in the trunk of a car, drove out to a field, moved him from the trunk into the back of the car where he could visually watch them dig out grave. They're like, we're digging your grave. We're gonna bury you alive. Here's the crazy part. They didn't realize that the key was still in the ignition and he was in the back seat of the car. Is the drove off? He got in the front, locked the doors and drove off and left them with their shovels in the middle of the field.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. LT was the only one arrested from this incident, even though it seemed like CJ was the ringleader. And LT lived by these gang rules that snitches get stitches. I don't know if that's gang rule, but you get it. So CJ was listed as a fugitive from the law, but LT never gave up his location. Technically, when the restaurant beating happened, CJ was still categorized as a fugitive, and this was really setting off a lot of netizens.

Because if you guys remember a year ago, like even maybe currently a couple months ago, during the pandemic, to do anything in China, to do get anywhere, even to go into a restaurant or even a clothing shop, you had to scan a QR code that basically told you that you were not testing positive for Corona, right? You cannot go anywhere without this.

How was he going around anywhere? Yeah, that's weird. Because you're a fugitive, your QR code is not just going to be separate. Your QR code is going to be like, hi, I'm a fugitive. Please call the police. So again, that leads netizens to believe that he did have some connections to authorities that could get him some sort of QR code.

LT was also married with children, so both just great people. Soon after that, another arrest was made. Remember the guy wearing the boy shirt? The one that just had no idea what was going on, but proceeded to be one of the most violent in the group? Yeah. His name is Mai Yunchi. He's 28 years old and we're just gonna call him Mai.

Mai and CJ, the green jacket guy, the main guy. They were the main physical aggressors. And Mai is the one that dragged the woman out on the ground outside. He was just extremely vile. He was married, had a kid. He later said that the only reason he was being so aggressive that night,

and I don't know why he thought this was an excuse, was because he was a hired henchman for the group. So he's literally been paid to be their muscle guy. He said that he was hired by a guy named Shen. The whole thing is weird. Shen was constantly in and out of prison. He's basically this city loan shark that would be the last person on earth

he wouldn't want to borrow money from. He was found on the run when they tried to arrest him. He ran shoelace into bushes and he was apprehended, crouched over, hiding in the grass behind a bush. So he was arrested as well. And let's talk about the man that was wearing red that night. At first he was kind of egging on the whole fight. He wasn't a part of it, but he was egging it on. Later he turned around and tried to break it all up because I guess he thought his friends were becoming too cruel. He was the richest amongst the group. He had a Mercedes Maybach, which is probably around $300,000, but what's interesting is his license plate. He had a custom license plate that ends in four numbers, 7777. And I think a few countries do this where numbered license plates can, they can

get really expensive. So for example, in Dubai, the license plate won. So they do numbered license plates can, they can get really expensive. So, for example, in Dubai, the license plate won. So, they do numbered license plate, meaning starting from one to however many, the lower the number, the more valuable the license plate. So, you see the car, just one on the back, that's it. It was purchased in auction in 2008 by a billionaire for $14.3 million. The license plate, the license plate. So the smaller the number and the more expensive it is. So if you ever in Dubai, you see a Rolls Royce with the license plate number one, two, three, four, five. I mean, yeah, we're talking about a half million

dollar car, but that's probably a $10 million license plate. In China, it's not as intense, but the similar concept applies. In China, people really like consecutive numbers. 888 being one of the most sought-after license plates, 888 translates to getting rich. A license plate in China that consisted of 580 was recently bought in auction for $300,000. And these lucky numbers, they can go for a lot. The number 7 in Chinese in Feng Shui, specifically means getting a promotion in your career. She like rice, rice up, I guess.

Yeah, or like hitting a jackpot or something, and it's speculated that this guy spent close to $100,000 on just his license plate. So where did he get the money? He ran an illegal gambling ring, and it's speculated that every four years during the World Cup, he would make $14 million US dollars from illegal gambling on the World Cup.

There was another man later identified as being part of the group, and the CCTV cameras show that he sat on the chair while the group beat the woman, and near the end, he got up to stop the fight. Yeah. So, you know how there were also two girls that were in the friend group that night?

One of them got up to join them and was later accidentally slapped. There was another woman who never got involved, but she did take care of LT because he was injured from beating the woman so hard. She is not his wife, but it seems like they have quite the intimate relationship. Also, it's kind of mind-blowing if they're dating. Like, she's just watching her boyfriend beat up an innocent woman for no reason, and you're not scared for your life. Like, that's not very bright. So it's speculated that they all had met up

at the barbecue restaurant that night to discuss a potential illegal gambling ring that they were trying to set up for this upcoming world cup that we recently just watched, the one that just passed. They were gonna start prepping for it then. And now, most of them are in jail. And hopefully it stays that way. Unfortunately, the story does not end there. A lot of people were blamed for the incident that night. And we have the usual people to blame. Like, of course, we have the perpetrators. The police may be some of the perpetrators are working with the police.

We have all these speculations. But some of these were just all over the place. Do you know what a funeral reef is? Yeah. I don't think it's as common here in the States. I guess it's like sounding condolence flowers. But in Asia, when someone passes, you get them this big reef that has its own stand, and that's typical. The owner of the barbecue restaurant started receiving them, almost as some sort of threat on her life, that she needs to shut up.

It's also speculated that the gang saw her as a snitch because in order for the police to have gotten this CCTV camera, she's the owner of the restaurant they would have had to go through her. She tried a few times to stop the assault but she was very scared. After the viral video, she was being threatened by the gang and she was being attacked by netizens who said that she did nothing to stop the fight. She had to release a video where she said, I'm over 50 years old, I try to break up the fight, I told my employees to call the police, they threatened to beat me too, netizens are bullying me on the internet and I don't really know what to do or where to go anymore, I'm going crazy.

So now the internet feels bad and they move on, they start blaming a clothing brand. Remember the boy shirt guy? Netizens started boycotting the boy London brand and even shared a meme that said, types of people to stay away from. The men that would be shown on this meme are shown wearing a boy London t-shirt. That's tight. Shows a little bit of their belly.

A gold chain or two. A big or mesologo belt. A big designer clutch tight shorts and loafers without socks. It got so bad that people were flooding Boyland in social media, counting I need a return for this shirt that I bought five years ago, because I don't want to be associated with this type of guy who beats women. It was pretty bad. It was pretty misplaced hanger and a bit of an odd one.

There was also a live streamer who had her own clothing brand that did t-shirt designs with gold wings on them And they looked very similar to the Boy London shirts And during her live streams, promoting her clothes, people start ripping her to shreds in the comments about how her brand is a brand for bullies Ironically, they were the bullies bullying her She cried during her stream For a while, these types of conversations were kind of at the forefront of the Chinese internet. Until about a week after the video was first posted, people started realizing, we have not heard a single thing from the victims.

Wait a minute. There's no news, no updates on their conditions, no words, on if they're safe, if they're been taken into protection, like nothing, just radio silence. The last official statement that was released is that two of them were being treated, two of them were unstable, but not critical condition. So what's going on? Not even anonymously, like people aren't posting videos. So usually in cases like this in Asia, you'll have the victims come out anonymously,

the way wearing masks, their face will be blurred, distorted, or they'll be turned around. None of that was happening So people start speculating and the biggest theory was that and I still see it online today the victims are dead This rumor this theory this conspiracy. I'm not really sure how to categorize it It just starts spreading like wildfire online the victim or the victims. They're all dead The government is trying to cover it up because if we find out they're dead, there's going to be movements, protests, riots all around the country. People start questioning what happened in

that dark CCTV list alleyway. Some speculated all three girls died in the alleyway. Another popular theory was that the girls were being assaulted in the alleyway and eventually the gang members ran them over with their car. Another video came out claiming to be the audio from the dark alley way and you just hear it terrified screams. It's like the types of screams that would keep you up at night. People start sharing photos of blood that was left behind in the alleyway and it looks like pools and pools of blood everywhere. Another netizen came forward to say, I work at the hospital and one of the girls is dead.

The abusers, the perpetrators are out of jail too. They just had to pay the police $90,000. The witness is in the hospital staff for being silenced. So, Wabo is kind of like the meta or the YouTube of China. Twitter. Twitter, June 19th of 2022,

they announced that they will be suspending 300 accounts for spreading rumors about the restaurant beating incident. And eventually, more than 1, thousand waybo accounts were closed. And then a very, very moving picture was posted. It featured a woman in a white mask holding, she's wearing all white and she's holding up a piece of paper that read, I am an initiator one from Shanghai who is speaking up about the Tangshan Beating Incident. I ask the government to make public the current situation of the victims and results of the investigation into the perpetrators. This is to keep our wives and

daughters from being the next victim. Please speak up for the victims until this incident is solved. You don't have to like this post. Instead I ask you I urge you to speak up and let's do this together. Women were grabbing their own masks and their own papers, but anyone who posted these pictures, their accounts were quickly banned. So this is only gonna fuel more rumors. Netizen started speculating that Weibo was being ordered by the government

to shut down accounts to hide the truth. People argued, just give us an update or something on the victims, just let us hear from them once. We don't need to know their identities or let a family member talk for them again. They can do it completely anonymously. We just need to know that they're alive.

We just need to know the truth. Another person wrote, why stop at just banning the accounts? Why don't you go on the streets and cover our mouths too? But others started arguing, yeah, this idea is kind of crazy, guys. We can't just force victims out during the most traumatic moments in their lives so that you can get some closure on the internet. So again, I just want to clarify, nobody wants the victims' identities to be released unless that's what the victims wanted.

They just want it proof of life. And when I say government, a lot of it that I think people were upset about was the local government of Tangshan. It just seems like they were corrupt. So this led to a lot of journalists getting intrigued about this, because if you're talking about a police cover-up, of course they're gonna wanna get to the bottom of it.

A lot of journalists were being turned away from Tangshan. They would get to the train station at Tangshan, and the authorities would be there, and they would say, oh, for pandemic purposes, we're gonna make sure that every single person is checked into the city, and Tang Tang Shen has these strict visitor rules. But it is weird because the pandemic was at its peak a while back and Tang Shen never had these regulations and suddenly immediately after the restaurant beating, they were putting these regulations in place.

One journalist managed to get into Tangshan and he was arrested. He said it was insane. I mean, the police were threatening him. They held him for eight hours. He just didn't understand. They couldn't even give him a proper reason of why they were arresting him. He said about four to five officers harassed him for eight hours until he was finally released. The reporter would go on to share his experience about Tang Shen and he said that he did

nothing illegal and he was just met with the most intense police violence. He would later be pressured into deleting that video. So reporters, they're getting frustrated by their inability to get to Tang Shen and figure out what the hell is going on. It's speculated that almost 200 reporters were turned away from the city. Some optimists were believing that maybe Tang Shen was doing this to protect the victims and their identities, but the general consensus was, this is suspicious. To make things worse, a few days later, the crime scene was demolished. Videos were reported by locals

where the restaurant was being just demolished. What? And people were saying the case isn't even being settled. How is the restaurant being demolished? Like this is crazy. There were so much outrage, conspiracies. The local police came out and said, don't worry, it's not being demolished.

It's just being renovated. Yeah. Other tongue-shan residents came out to say, hey, the Chinese netizens are right. The city is still kind of run by gangs. Let me tell you my experience with gang violence that I have run into recently. And I'm not even involved in this, like underground life.

I'm just like a student. And they would post their ideas, they would post their stories to verify that there was real. Police would call these tuncheon locals and beg them to take it down. The whole world was watching tuncheon, and it just wasn't good. So the local government decides,

okay, let me try to fix it before the central government starts cracking down on us. And they release like this anonymous tip line where you can call and report gang violence. And it just didn't really work. Like people were lined up outside because the line was crowded. You couldn't even talk to anybody. It was flooded with calls. People would go directly to the police station to get answers. They were left waiting outside for four to five minutes. So it was just reconfirmed. Four to five minutes? Four to five hours. Sorry. So it's just reconfirmed in their heads. Like, this is just for show. They don't actually care to do anything.

And then the central government got involved. And a state-run media channel had released interviews done with the victims. Their identities were kept anonymous, but they tried to debunk some of the theories. They said that they were not assaulted. They were very, very badly injured. Girl number one had to have stitches on her face. She had internal organ damage. Multiple fractures.

It was bad, but she was going to be fine. They said that the screaming video of them in the alleyway was actually a mashup of other incidents. So that's what the news station said. They said that they traced the audio that someone had released online of like listen to the girl screaming. You're telling me that they weren't assaulted. They said that someone had edited together victim screams from other instances and put them together. And the large amount of blood in the alleyway, they said it was just water that had been photoshopped.

Okay, this one I actually agree with the state run news for once because the photo does look poorly edited. And finally, to really put a stop to the rumors, the victims, they expressed that they were okay and they expressed anger at the fact that, one of the biggest parts of recovering from their trauma is that people try to give them

advice on how to avoid being physically beaten next time. Grow number one said, I mean, I know these people mean well, but still, they told me next time to handle it more calmly and I should just tell him, big brother, no, we can't. I don't want to and then just pass him a glass of beer so I can stay safe. But I'm pissed when they say that because why should I do that? For what?

Another victim said, the gang told us not to call the police and told us not to tell anyone, or they would kill us. They also debunked rumors that they had received any monetary compensation from the gang so that they would stay quiet. Now, on August 11th of 2022, the green jacket guy CJ,

along with 28 others who were involved in a total of 11 crimes. So not just this case of the restaurant reading, but like 11 collective crimes. They were in prison. They were indicted. You say 28 people? Additional. So 29 people were arrested. Wow, okay. And it seems that CJ was the initiator of the case.

Not all nine of us friends that were at the restaurant that night were arrested, because two of them didn't really participate They even tried to break up the fight at one point So they weren't arrested but CJ the green jacket guy was find $45,000 and was sentenced to 24 years in prison It's weird because in some sense that is a lot more than what I've seen other cases similar to this get But then just on a moral Dressedress level. it's like not enough. So it's confusing.

Like do we compare it to the abysmal state of the justice system around the world when it comes to gendered violence or do we compare it to just... Now the other remaining defendants were sentenced to prison ranging from six months to 11 years, depending on the severity of their crimes. Additionally, where we are right now is that five public officials, including the police inspector, the head of the police station in Tangshan, and a few other officers are being suspected of serious violations of discipline and law. So they are being investigated by the central government.

And that is currently where we're at with the story of what happened in the viral restaurant beating video. I think this video is living proof of just the sheer fear that women live with on a daily basis. Like, there is no just saying no. There's no just rejecting him. We live in a world where it seems like we have to tolerate sexual harassment in order to stay alive.

Like, not a single man in that restaurant tried to intervene. Not a single one of them even got out from their chairs. Like, I am so glad to say that I don't know a single man in my personal life that wouldn't have gotten up to do something or try. But I think that this is maybe a lesson for everyone that we all just need to do better. But I'll leave you with this. There is a quote from the 30 names of night and it reads, sometimes the world is just one long chain of men from whose anger there is no protection and it's like an obstacle course that I have to run to stay safe. And I

feel like that is just the embodiment of what it means to be a woman today. What are your thoughts? How do you feel? I mean, just feel rage like I do I was so angry. That's it for today's episode and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the next one. Please stay safe. Bye!