Two Chinese men are on trial in America after they assaulted a third Chinese man outside a karaoke bar in 2014. The two assailants called themselves "chengguan," the name of the much-reviled Chinese urban enforcement officers, and drove around with chengguan-badge images plastered on the sides of their vehicles.
These chengguan wannabes were students (one current, one former) of Michigan State University, and the attack took place near campus. Meng Long Li and Shan Gao, the assailants, deny that they were part of a gang, and say they dubbed themselves chengguan "just for fun." (And, fitting with their new moniker, promptly beat the shit out of someone.)
Gao and Li are accused of beating a third student, whose name has not been released, in the head with a water pitcher until he was knocked unconscious. He eventually required three stitches and 10 staples.
According to the Detroit Free Press, "prosecutors have described Chengguan, a group of students at MSU, as a gang that intimidates other Chinese students for various purposes. But a student [described] it as a group of friends who eat together and go to karaoke clubs."
Protip: If you want to avoid accusations of gang-like behavior, probably not a good idea to name your "group of friends" after a group whose first page of Google results is almost unanimously related to abuse. This is like naming your drinking clique "We the people who violently harass others" and then getting angsty when you're accused of violently harassing someone.
Also, Li had the nickname of "The Enforcer." This does not bode well for the boys as their trial continues.
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