Police officer fires gun, water cannon used for first time on protesters in Hong Kong

A study of various video footage showed that as black-clad protesters were charging at police, one officer fell to the wet ground – and appeared to drop his gun. As the officers backed away, the warning shot was heard within seconds.

Almost immediately, five more officers drew their revolvers and pointed them at demonstrators, onlookers and journalists.

As with previous protests, the mayhem began soon after a peaceful march – this time from Kwai Chung to Tsuen Wan and attended by thousands of people.

From 5.30pm, as protesters massed and began building makeshift barricades and hurling bricks and sticks at police, tensions rose.

By the time police fired tear gas, petrol bombs were coming their way. More than an hour later, police had fired least 70 canisters of tear gas, 24 rubber bullets and 31 sponge grenades at protesters on Yeung Uk Road.

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By 7pm, the squad, which also deployed two water cannon for the first time in Hong Kong, had successfully dispersed the protesters – and subdued some of them.

But by the time the vehicles left Yeung Uk Road half an hour later, masked protesters began grouping in Yi Pei Square, some 700 metres away, vandalising several mahjong parlours and hotpot restaurants with steel bars after prying open their iron gates and smashing the windows.

“Where are the Fujian folks?” the angry mob shouted.

The protesters were apparently prompted by an earlier bloody incident on August 5, when a group of white- and blue-shirted gangsters, who had gathered at Yi Pei Square, attacked anti-bill protesters with rods and knives.

Earlier on Sunday, several men in blue T-shirts were also seen hitting protesters on Chung On Street with sticks they had picked up from a taxi parked nearby.

After smashing the glass doors of the mahjong parlours, spoiling the metal shutters of other stores, the group of protesters – many wrapped in masks and balaclavas – later headed towards Chung On Street, where they attacked a police van with rods and umbrellas.

Two officers, armed with batons and shields, later got out of the van. Realising they were outnumbered, the duo retreated to the junction of Chung On Street and Sha Tsui Road, where they joined a dozen colleagues fending off tens of protesters along the road.

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Several fully masked radicals on the frontline hit and jabbed fiercely at the officers with metal rods, while those further back abetted by hurling projectiles such as helmets and umbrellas.

In the pitched fighting, an officer tripped over a water-filled barricade and was pounced upon by protesters who hit his back. It was then the warning shot was fired and the other officers drew their guns.

A middle-aged man, dressed in a vest and shorts and with an umbrella in one hand, spread his arms and knelt before police, begging them not to shoot – but he was kicked away by an officer.

At least two officers were also seen pointing revolvers at journalists on the pavement, even though there were no protesters behind them.

As the officers retreated along Sha Tsui Road, scores of angry journalists chased them all the way to New Haven Tower on Kwan Mun Hau Street.

“Why are you pointing at the journalists?” they shouted at uniformed officers stationed near the staircase there.

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More riot police arrived minutes later to provide backup. Five injured officers – among them those involved in the fierce clash – were ferried away by an ambulance, bringing an end to possibly the most intense 30 minutes in three months of turmoil.

Terence Mak Chin-ho, assistant police commissioner in charge of operations, on Monday defended the officer’s decision to fire a warning shot, and slammed protesters for using deadly weapons, such as bricks, rods and petrol bombs.

But some frontline protesters, in a press conference on Monday, said it was police who escalated the use of force first, citing the introduction of water cannon. They added the petrol bombs were intended only to create a line of defence preventing officers from making arrests.

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By Monday morning, shop owners were back, trying to pick up the pieces, while a contingent of cleaners was also deployed to Yeung Uk Road market, the backdrop to the firing of multiple rounds of tear gas.

A few dozen police officers were also spotted on Sha Tsui Road in the afternoon, searching the tarmac and flower beds for the bullet. They could not find it.

In Yi Pei Square, most shops remained shuttered while others were filled with construction workers repairing the destruction, welding store fronts and fixing signage.

The owner of a Chinese herb shop next to a vandalised hotpot restaurant, who only gave her surname Lau, said one of its surveillance cameras was destroyed with a brick.

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“Our business has gone down by 50 per cent. I can’t even cover the rent now,” she said. “And my old customers dare not to come.”

Residents, meanwhile, had mixed feelings about the clashes that brought infamy to their neighbourhood.

Housewife Doris Wong, 55, said she would avoid going to Yi Pei Square but still felt safe in the rest of the area, as violent protesters made up a minority of the group.

“I think most of the protesters were peaceful,” she said, adding police fired the gunshot only because they were under attack.

Calvin Wong, a 23-year-old student who lives in the district, called on the city’s leader to resolve the impasse through political means.

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“The government should actively find solutions rather than just keep condemning the protesters,” he said.

Tsuen Wan, an industrial district in the western New Territories known for its textile industry, had recently been regenerated with the opening of the Mills, a revitalisation project which turned a cluster of disused cotton mills into a creative design hub. That makeover might have to compete with another image of the town, imprinted by Sunday’s bitter fighting.

Additional reporting by Alvin Lum