A 29-year-old restaurant deliveryman from China was fatally shot while on the job two years ago in Southeast, in a type of killing that police say occurs up to five times a year in the Washington area.
On Nov. 11, 2007, Hong Zhi Wang was delivering food to regular customers on the 1200 block of Barnaby Terrace around 10:30 p.m. when they heard gunshots and called the police. Wang was later found robbed and shot in the neck. He was rushed to Washington Hospital Center’s MedStar unit, where he died the next day.
Wang was the second deliveryman from an Asian restaurant to be slain while working in Southeast in a three-month span. At the time Wang was killed, police had already arrested a suspect in the first incident, the death of Ling Mao, then 36.
“Unfortunately, it’s a dangerous business,” said Capt. Michael Farish of D.C. police. “You’ve got folks with less than honorable intentions when they make that call.”
It was the second time Wang was robbed while on the job as a deliveryman. After the first incident, his wife tried to convince him to find new work, but Wang stuck with the job because he said it paid well.
Wang left northern China in 1999 and moved to New York. There, he met his wife and had two children.
In 2005, Wang moved to the Washington area to find work and support his family, which had stayed in New York. At the time of his death, his kids were 2 years old and 2 months old.
“Mr. Wang or Mr. Jones or Smith all have someone that love them,” said Farish when asked why his team pursued the killers of the more than 4,000 people who’ve been slain in D.C. “No one has a right to arbitrarily take someone’s life like that.”
Anyone with information regarding the death of Hong Zhi Wang is asked to call D.C. police at 202-727-9099.
