Sun Yong and Chen Bainian, two police officers in charge of a police station, were sentenced to three years in jail for dereliction of duty in a major stampede case in a Beijing park early this year. 
  
The ruling was handed down on Friday in a "first instance" trial by the No.2 Intermediate People's Court of Beijing.
   
The stampede took place on February 5 during the lantern festival of China's Spring Festival on a bridge in Mihong Park in the Miyun County suburbs. Thirty-seven people were killed, including several who fell off the bridge, and 24 others were injured.
   
Many people were crowded onto the bridge in order to get a good position for watching brightly lit lanterns on display there, witnesses told the court.
   
Sun, who was then chief of the Miyun County police station, and Chen, then the commissar of the police station, failed to dispatch enough police to guide the flow of visitors to the bridge, the court said. When the chaos began, there were no police at the bridge site to prevent the situation from getting out of control.     
   
Earlier, 12 other people were also given penalties for their roles in failing to prevent the accident. They were either fired and received administrative demerits or warnings inside the Party.

(Xinhua News Agency November 27, 2004)