Daring to go the extra mile to nab criminals

Whenever faced with a dangerous mission, Cheng Shiyi, a female criminal investigation police officer in Wuhan, Hubei province, would always step up and say, "I know kung fu, let me go first."

Cheng, 24, has cracked more than 60 criminal cases and apprehended over 40 suspects in less than 18 months since she became a criminal investigation police officer at the end of 2022.

"Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a police officer," Cheng said.

Influenced by her father, who is a soldier, she enjoys watching movies and TV shows with military and police themes since her childhood. In her view, soldiers defend the country while police fight against crime, two honorable professions.

Due to her weak health, her parents sent her to a martial arts gym owned by a friend when she was four years old, where she practiced Chinese martial arts regularly for three years. This laid the foundation for her later enthusiasm for sports and willingness to try various physical activities.

As she grew up, most of her hobbies were related to sports, including paragliding, sanda (a combat sport originating from Chinese kung fu), and cycling.

During the summer of her sophomore year, just two months after recovering from a broken arm, she went on a 31-day cycling trip with her classmates from Chengdu, Sichuan province to Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Xizang autonomous region. "Despite encountering natural disasters such as landslides, mudslides, torrential rain and lightning, as well as altitude sickness and opposition from family members, we persisted and reached our destination," Cheng said.

To pursue her career aspirations, Cheng enrolled in the Hubei University of Police in 2018. Throughout her university years, she received sanda training and participated in a university-wide sanda competition, where she won the women's championship.

Upon graduating from university, Cheng took an exam to become a police officer. On her first day at the Jianghan Erqiao police station of the Hanyang District Branch of Wuhan Public Security Bureau in November 2022, she expressed her firm aspiration: "I want to become a criminal investigator."

The first case Cheng handled was an electric bike theft that occurred one month after she joined the police station. She worked with a colleague to search for clues on the suspect through surveillance footage, but the suspect disappeared from the surveillance footage in the early hours of the third day.

With the help of her mentor Wang Yu, another criminal investigator at the police station, Cheng tracked down a residential community where the suspect sold the stolen electric bike, and returned the electric bike to the victim.

"At that moment, I felt a sense of satisfaction from fulfilling my ideals," Cheng said, recalling the successful moment.

To gain work experience and get familiar with the public security work as soon as possible, Cheng volunteered to participate in the "110" emergency response work, in addition to her regular casework.

Whenever faced with challenges at work, she would always say, "Nothing can defeat the passion of young people."

In the eyes of police officer Zhang Chen, who worked at the Jianghan Erqiao police station for three years, Cheng is a little bit shy in her daily life, but once she is on duty, she would become so energetic and confident that she seems like a completely different person.

In June last year, Cheng and three of her colleagues, dressed in plain clothes, tracked the movements of two criminal suspects to an urban square in Jiang'an district, and found them at a crossroad.

One of the two suspects was sitting on an electric bike, while the other was standing by the roadside, puffing smoke rings and chatting with each other.

Cheng signaled to her colleagues to stay put and observe the situation. After confirming that there were no other accomplices present, they disguised themselves as passersby and walked toward the crossroad. As they approached the suspects within five meters, Cheng and her colleagues suddenly rushed toward them.

Cheng rushed forward and grabbed a suspect's right hand, which was holding a cigarette, pulled him off the bike and pressed him down on the ground, and then put handcuffs on him. Another suspect tried to run away but was subdued by the colleagues.

"She would never say she has no experience doing it or can't do it, but instead treats difficulties as an opportunity to sharpen herself," said Du Hai, the political instructor at the Jianghan Erqiao police station.

After becoming a police officer, Cheng realized that the job was somewhat different from what she had seen on TV shows or movies in her childhood.

"In fact, police work can also be trivial and mundane sometimes, and it requires persistence, strong patience, and compassion," she said.

Contact the writers at pengchao@chinadaily.com.cn