Hong Kong police opened fire and hit at least one protester on Monday according to multiple news sources, as chaos erupted across the city a day after officers fired tear gas to break up demonstrations that are entering their sixth month.
Police fired live rounds at protesters on the eastern side of Hong Kong island, and local Cable TV said one protester was wounded when police opened fire. Video footage showed a protester lying in a pool of blood with his eyes wide open. Police also pepper-sprayed and subdued a woman nearby as plastic crates were thrown at officers, the video shared on social media showed.
A longer clip of the shooting is below. Reader discretion advised.
The shot protester is said in critical condition, according to CableTB.
Riot police soon appeared after the shooting, helping the traffic officers subdue the protesters according to RTHK. Angry people started demanding explanations for the shooting, but were pepper sprayed by riot police. A woman who continued to confront the officers was thrown to the ground, then subdued, as the enraged crowd threw objects at the officers and cursed them.
An ambulance arrived around six minutes after the shooting, by which time the first man who was shot appeared to be barely moving, lying in a pool of blood. The camera operator was by this time sobbing as he recounted the shooting to his audience.
Following the shooting, police cordoned off the area, but a large crowd of many hundreds of people quickly gathered at the intersection, yelling abuse at the officers, many of them extremely emotional. Police ordered them to leave immediately, only to be ignored. Officers then used pepper spray on the crowd. Some then left, and officers rushed forward to arrest a few of them.
Police issued a statement saying that radical protesters had set up barricades at multiple locations across the city and warned the demonstrators to “stop their illegal acts immediately.” They did not comment immediately on the apparent shooting.
Services on some train and subway lines were also disrupted early on Monday, with riot police deployed near stations and shopping malls. Many universities cancelled classes on Monday and there were long traffic jams in some areas.
Monday’s violence followed a 24th straight weekend of anti-government unrest as activists blocked roads and trashed shopping malls across Hong Kong’s New Territories and Kowloon peninsula.
Today’s chaos follows the death last Friday of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology student Chow Tsz-lok, days after he fell in a car park near a police dispersal operation where tear gas had been fired.
Protesters are angry about what they see as police brutality and meddling by Beijing in the former British colony’s freedoms, guaranteed by the “one country, two systems” formula put in place when the territory returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Meanwhile, China has repeatedly warned that continued violence could be met with a ground invasion of Hong Kong, although so far Beijing has demonstrated an unwillingness to escalate.
The Hang Seng stock index tumbled more than 2% in early trading following news of the shooting.
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I haven’t been paying much attention to the Hong Kong situation because it doesn’t concern me. Watching the videos produced mixed reactions and I can’t properly rate them due to lack of total information.
However, one thing is clear, the average person in Hong Kong isn’t taking a stand and allowing the gov’t and the protesters to step all over their natural rights as human beings.
When someone can tie a piece of string between two poles and a MAN truck is disabled by this formidable barrier, it’s evident that self censorship is alive and well in Hong Kong.
What is that truck driver thinking? ‘No- I can’t drive through that string because I don’t have permission.’ He/she has been lobotomized into this lack of common sense action by years of respecting the fiction of the law. He/she has been conditioned to be a slave to everyone that claims superior authority. Pitiful!
As to the masked rioters, they can demonstrate all they want but as soon as they get in my way and attempt to block my progress, I believe I have the right to do whatever I believe is necessary with complete disregard for anything the law says even to the point of killing that SOB to resume my journey.
Good luck with that. Are you a badass protester? Do you break bad laws? Curious.
Of course I break bad laws. What decent person wouldn’t?
“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” – Thomas Jefferson
“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” – Thomas Jefferson
When I lived in Texas, I’d get anywhere from 3 to 6 speeding tickets annually. I never signed a ticket and requested the cop to follow the law and take me ‘immediately to a magistrate’. That never happened.
I would show up for court and demand a jury trial as was my right. Sometimes I’d get into a minor pissing contest with the judge about that but I always prevailed because he and I both knew that was my right under law.
In one such incident, the judge started scolding me from the bench about the costs involved for the municipality and I reminded him that it wasn’t my idea to force me to go through this annoying process and that as compensation for my time I wanted some entertainment value. Several dozen folks waiting to plead guilty, because they were too stupid to do otherwise, roared in laughter upon which the judge banged that stupid wooden hammer and demanded order in the court. What a jerk.
Over at least a 12 year period I got convicted once. While my wife would have to go to the DMV periodically to renew her license, I’d get mine mailed to me because I had a spotless record; the accompanying letter said so. That would chap her hide no end because she would be a good little slave and always pay the fines so her record was tarnished.
I’d write my own motions. I’d drag the cop into court because I have the right to interrogate my accuser. As an electrical engineer, I’d get the court to certify me as an expert on electronic devices and made sure the judge reminded the jury of that FACT as I started to cross examine the cop. I’d watch the cops face get a bit tense as that happened.
All but that one time I convinced the jury that the cop had no clue about the radar gun he was using. The only time this didn’t work was when the prosecutor bottled me up with some legal technicality I was too ignorant to quash. I was unable to present a case and the jury found me guilty. The judge set the fine to half of what it would have been and requested I stay behind after the jury left.
Both the judge and prosecutor shook my hand after telling me I did an admirable job and then explained the gimmick that was used to thwart me. Unsolicited, as I was leaving, the judge volunteered that if I was ever requested to take a breathalyzer, to decline.
Every word is true, I kid you not.
Tragic. . . But our leaders on both sides of the political aisle happily and energetically funded and created the industrial and military power that is now CHINA. GATT, WTO, Most Favored Nation Status, generous education and employment visa programs, acceptance of totally fraudulent financial data as well as essentially slave labor and massive social engineer projects made this headline a fait accompli. But the consumers (notice I didn’t say citizens) all to happy to buy cheap products that were once manufactured here and now there, had a big hand in this as well. For those unable to deal with the simple fact that Hong Kong is gone, I suggest you just party like its 1999.
What’s the deal here anyway? Why aren’t these people staying home? Mob scenes are sure to be dangerous. The chicomms haven’t really “done” anything. Too bad they’re unarmed.
At least the policeman when home safe that night.
Imagine if the public were largely armed. Of course it wouldn’t be pretty, and the communists would crush the people, as they do always, but at least the people would have some recourse.
Naturally, if the public were largely armed communism would never be allowed to take root.
Thus the American communist’s (democrats) absolute insistence on disarming the public.