(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-14 17:35

GUANGZHOU - South China police are investigating how an officer shot and killed a neurosurgeon in an early morning confrontation in the city of Guangzhou on Tuesday.

Yin Fangming [xinhuanet]

Physician Yin Fangming, 43, who was described by colleagues at the city's Zhujiang Hospital as "good-natured", was shot once through the heart.

The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau on Wednesday promised a "serious and fair" inquiry into the shooting.

A bureau spokesman said the shooting occurred near the hospital in the Haizhu District at 4:55 a.m., when a police officer from the bureau's Haizhu branch stopped to speak to the driver of a car that appeared suspicious because the license plates at front and rear were covered with newspaper.

But the driver refused to answer the officer's questions and forcibly grabbed the officer's police identification card, said the spokesman.

The driver allegedly put his car into reverse in an apparent attempt to hit the officer, and injured the officer's legs, the spokesman said.

The officer grabbed a door handle to stop the car, and he was dragged along the road for several meters, the spokesman said.

"The police officer was forced to fire his pistol, and the driver was shot and injured," he said.

The officer immediately called the emergency medical services and the driver was taken to Zhujiang Hospital, but he died after emergency treatment, the spokesman said.

The driver's car was not legally registered as required, and the license plate number was a military car number that had become invalid, the police spokesman said.

Police also found another two license plates, with registrations in Guangdong and Hunan provinces, in the trunk, he said.

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