Police hunt death-defying filmmaker

• Source: Global Times
• [08:13 August 02 2010]
• Comments

The chase is on

Feng said that staff members were unable to stop the man, who narrowly managed to escape.

"He ran away, but once we find him, he will most definitely be punished," he said. "Such behavior is strictly forbidden."

Feng said that the subway authority has reported the incident to police and has sent video surveillance footage of the scene to them, but declined to comment further on whether authorities have any leads on who the man is, or on his whereabouts.

According to municipal laws, the subway operator cannot be held responsible for pas-sengers who intentionally jump onto the tracks and are killed as a result of their actions. People who choose to cross the tracks, or climb down from the platform can be fined upwards of 500 yuan ($73.80).

The video, which was removed from Youku Sunday, has since caught the attention of local media in recent days, and has also garnered interest from the online community. After the video was posted to several other online forums, some web users even commented on the video Sunday, saying that it was "very exciting."

'Sociopathic' move

According to Yan Wenhua, a professor of psychology from East China Normal University, the actions come from a man who is desperately seeking attention, but not from a person who fails to value his own life.

"We see that he laid down at the last moment, which means that he wasn't willing to die," she told the Global Times Sunday. "The man likely thinks that facing death head-on serves as some kind of thrill.

"These kinds of people are sociopaths," she added. "They are always looking for ways to break the rules, and go against the social order despite the costs involved."

Meanwhile, frequent subway riders like Dong Hao, 30, said Sunday that the man should be reprimanded for his actions.

"I really can't understand his line of thought," he told the Global Times Sunday. "This kind of senseless trick should not be promoted.

"What if young children try to copy him?" he added.

Though the incident is the first of its kind to be reported in the city, and possibly in the country, it is no new phenomenon for other places around the world.

A similar episode occurred in the UK two years ago, when a British man laid down on railway tracks to shoot a video of the train as it passed over him. The clip soon became a hit on Youtube.com, a popular video-sharing website worldwide. According to British media, more young people have died from attempting this type of risky stunt in recent years.

Shen Weihuang contributed to this story