57F24C3CE08DA3DF1DA616EB5E903A6E.jpg (Photo : sz.szhk.com)
Mr. Yang, nicknamed Brother Di, a Shenzhen cab driver known in his community as a "selfless" man, has been beaten to death by his passengers.
The beating incident reportedly happened on the night of December 13 when Yang's taxi was hailed by a group of drunken passengers and he pulled over to the side along Hyde 2nd St. in NanHai City, Nan Shan.
Mr. Huang, a colleague of Yang, said the drunken passengers forcibly removed Yang's rearview mirror and used it to beat the cab driver.
"They took the rearview mirror off and beat him in the head with it and smashed his head against this steering wheel," Huang said.
"The back of his head was cracked open. It is too gruesome to imagine, " Huang added.
Yang was taken to Nan Shan hospital for surgery but he passed away yesterday afternoon due to severe injuries he sustained from the beating.
Huang described Yang as very understated, selfless, honest and easy to get along with. He is said to have transported students, free of charge, to their schools on exam day; and would diligently look for the owner of any wallet left behind in his cab.
Tributes to Yang's good nature and good deeds haven't stopped pouring in since news of his tragic death broke.
Yesterday afternoon, a dozen or so fellow cabdrivers from Nanping, Yang's hometown, gathered at the hospital to see their friend and colleague for one last time. They angrily called for more public safety measures for taxi drivers.
"It's just like in Guang Dong!", they shouted.
The team leader at the taxi company where Yang worked did say, however, that the company's cars all have GPS installed, allowing them to contact the company's reception desk for help if they encountered difficult situations.
Yang's grieving wife called for witnesses to step forward. The couple has a 21-year-old daughter with a deformity and a son who is still in high school.
"He was the backbone for our family. I don't know what we're going to do now that he's gone," Yang's wife said.
In a corner on the hospital's third floor, an old man quietly cried as he watched the scene. He is the father of Li, one of the suspects in the beating.
He came to Shenzhen from his home in Henan immediately after hearing the news, and has already paid tens of thousands of Renmenbi in hospital costs.
He said his son came to Shenzhen to work at a software company after graduating from technical school.
"He was such a disappointment. We tried so hard. He was only working part time," the old man said, intimating that his son has a bad temper when drunk.
Two suspects, one named Li and another named Liu, have been taken into custody as the beating incident undergoes further investigation.
