"He is not allowed any contact with anyone so we have no idea what is going on," McLean said in an email. Two senators from Montana, Steve Daines and Jonathan Tester, have been involved in efforts to secure her son's release, along with staff at the University of Montana, family and friends, according to his mother. "I've known Guthrie for a long time and he's a good kid." "I do hope this will be resolved quickly so that Guthrie and Jennifer can be reunited," he said. He added that it seemed "odd" for police to take action weeks after the original incident.
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Mitchell told the South China Morning Post that the Zhengzhou police may not have a "complete picture of what happened" due to communication barriers with the McLeans and not have realised that Guthrie was trying to protect his mother. They later lowered this to 60,000 yuan, then 50,000 yuan. The driver "started to rough up Jennifer" after a dispute over the taxi fare and her son came to pull him off and push him to the ground, Mitchell was quoted as saying.Ībout a week later the police took Guthrie McLean to a station and requested about 100,000 yuan (US$14,800) in compensation for the driver's injuries. Tom Mitchell, a long-time family friend and the Beijing bureau chief of the Financial Times, told the Montana paper that the altercation occurred when Jennifer McLean, who is deaf and teaches in China, took a cab to her home in Zhengzhou. His detainment follows an incident on June 10 when a taxi fare dispute between his mother and a driver turned violent, Montana's Missoulian newspaper reported. Guthrie McLean, a student at the University of Montana, was detained on Sunday evening in Zhengzhou in Henan province and formally arrested the following day. The family of an American university student detained in China for five days without charge or contact beyond the police station have enlisted the help of US politicians to try to secure his release. Family of Guthrie McLean say he came to the aid of his mother who was assaulted by the driver in Zhengzhou and they are now concerned for his welfare