'Saturday's trouble showed why we need more police'

'Saturday's trouble showed why we need more police'

Timmy Sung reports

Police Commissioner Chris Tang said on Monday that the actions of "rioters" in Mong Kok at the weekend demonstrated why the force needs to hire hundreds more officers.



More than 100 people were arrested on Saturday night, after police fired tear gas and pepper spray, and on one occasion appeared to punch a man, as protesters threw bricks and bamboo poles in return.



In a briefing to reporters after a visit to the Chung Yeung estate in Fo Tan – which is being used to quarantine people over Covid-19 fears – Tang said the sudden flare-up in violence was a good example of why the force is planning to boost its manpower by more than 2,500 this financial year.



"As you can see over the weekend, although the situation had been a little bit quieter in the past few weeks, things can happen at anytime, like what happened on Saturday. They [protesters] set fires again, they threw petrol bombs again, and they made substantial disorder again," he said.



The police chief also cited a "significant threat" of domestic terrorism as he suggested that Hong Kong's peaceful days are behind it.



"We have to face the reality that there is a new normal. The new normal is that things cannot go back to one year ago. As you can see, petrol bombs are being thrown every day against police stations, against those clinics. And the potential local terrorism... this is a very significant threat."



Tang claimed that young people in Hong Kong lack an understanding of how to abide by the law, and he also dismissed the repeated allegations of brutality that have dogged the force since the extradition bill crisis erupted last summer.



"It's only because of the rioters, they use violence, they set fires, they assault other people, they throw petrol bombs, that's the reason why we have to react."



The police chief did reveal, however, that 21 officers have been reprimanded over their behaviour at anti-government protests, including one who drove his motorcycle into a crowd of protesters in Kwai Fong, and two officers who displayed reporters' ID cards to the media's cameras.



He was asked why police had felt the need to remove flowers and other tributes that people had placed outside Prince Edward MTR Station on Saturday, to mark seven months since riot officers stormed the building, battering scores of people inside.



"If there's any potential breach of public order, we have a duty to eliminate the cause of that potential public disorder. We have to take appropriate action in these circumstances," he explained.



The commissioner also admitted that he had "lacked sensitivity" for joining a dinner with celebrities recently, despite the authorities' calls for the public to keep their distance from each other amid the coronavirus outbreak.



He said that when he told movie star Jackie Chan at the dinner that it was his films that taught him how to be a policeman, he was only joking, saying he could equally have jested that it was the media that taught him to insist on searching for the truth.



"In fact, you know, I really respect reporters, your spirit on insisting on the truth," he added.