Off-duty officer ambushed constables, say police
Attack on TST patrol pair was aimed at stealing their guns, investigators believe
The off-duty officer at the centre of Friday's Tsim Sha Tsui shootout ambushed the two uniformed constables in an attempt to steal their pistols, police sources said yesterday.
Detectives from the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau returned to the shooting scene at the junction of Canton and Austin roads yesterday to reconstruct the shootout, in which off-duty constable Tsui Po-ko is believed to have shot dead one patrolling officer and critically wounded another.
Police believed the two patrolling officers were ambushed by Tsui, disguised in a wig, as they entered the underpass, the source said.
'The four mirrors inside the tunnel which allow people to see the blind spots while walking were all adjusted to an angle so that the spot where the gunfight took place was concealed,' he said.
The ambush took place close to where a patrol record book, which officers sign at certain points along their patrol route, was hanging.
'We think Tsui hid there and waited for the officers and we believe that Tsui was on his own,' the source said.
Tsui, nicknamed Bulldog, had finished duty at the Tung Chung police station about one hour before the shootout, the source said.
Tsui was wearing a wig and different clothes from those in which he had gone to work that afternoon, he said. 'We believe he wanted to obtain more pistols but we do not know why.'
A source earlier told the Sunday Morning Post that Tsui had long-standing connections to an underground soccer gambling syndicate in which other officers took part.
Another senior police officer confirmed that the .38 revolver used by constable Tsang Kwok-hang, who was killed during the shootout, was found in its holster.
How the gun, which had apparently been fired, came to be back in the holster 'may never be fully explained as the officer is dead', the officer said.
Hours after the shootout, police chief Dick Lee Ming-kwai said a total of 10 shots and all three pistols - two belonging to the uniformed officers and one, used by Tsui, that had been stolen from and used to murder constable Leung Shing-yan in 2001 - had been fired.
Police have made no official statement since then about the progress of their investigations.
Yesterday, the senior officer said the force was still investigating the actual number of shots fired.
Officers were also still waiting to interview injured Constable Sin Ka-keung, who is still in a serious condition in Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Family members at the hospital said Constable Sin could not speak.
Earlier yesterday, members of Tsui's family returned to the shooting scene to hold a spirit pacifying ritual. One man, who declined to be named, said the family was furious about their treatment by the force.
'Tsui was a policeman and nothing has become clear yet. No one from the force has comforted his wife or any other members of the family,' he said. Tsui left a wife and six-year-old daughter.
