An official report on the violence perpetrated by security forces during the 2014 student protests known as the Sunflower Movement has been released. The report is the final product of an investigation by the Taiwanese government’s auditory branch into the conduct of five government agencies. These include the Cabinet, the Interior Ministry, the national police, the Taipei City Police Department, and the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office.
The report stated that police were deployed improperly and were not sufficiently informed on the situation before deployment. This resulted in unneeded violence against protesters. The report says that measures have already been implemented to prevent such police actions in the future. These include additional training for how to deal with mass protest events.
The report included interviews with 107 people. According to official police figures, only 47 people were injured during the incident. However, investigations into 12 local hospitals revealed that as many as 166 people may have suffered injuries during clashes.
The report also claims that surveillance footage was mishandled. Some footage was unreadable on computers. Furthermore, evidence from Taipei police included completely unrelated footage such as cartoons and images of flowers. The report says the five agencies investigated must improve their evidence submission processes to improve future investigations and oversight.
