The husband of a woman who was brutally murdered by a man she sought police protection from is suing the NYPD for $15 million dollars. You may recall, with horror, that the victim, Qian Wu, 46, was allegedly bludgeoned and stabbed to death by 47-year-old suspect Huang Chen, who prosecutors say cut out her lungs and heart after beating her with a hammer 18 times. This happened in Wu's Flushing apartment building in January 2010, as she returned from the store with milk. Days before her death, Wu filed a harassment claim against Chen with the NYPD, who told her she needed to renew a protective order before they could take action.
It would have been her seventh restraining order against Chen, who had been stalking Wu ever since she rebuffed his romantic advances and failed to find him work through the employment agency she operated out of her apartment. In 2006, Wu was arrested for choking and punching her, and sent to Texas for deportation, the Daily News reports. While on supervised release, Chen returned to NYC, and was spotted in Wu's building, which alarmed her and her husband, Yongwei Guo. But Guo, who was a police officer in China, claims the NYPD did not see the urgency of the situation.
"They are supposed to protect us," Guo, 45, tells the Daily News. "These people were called to help. She called the police and they did nothing." And Guo's lawyer adds, "If they would have expended any effort they could have gotten him and prevented the murder." Chen was charged with murder, stalking and weapons possession, but he has been declared mentally unfit to stand trial.
