Police treat North Point assault as murder after man's death
Construction worker was attacked in North Point on way home and died in hospital
Police have reclassified a case of wounding and assault in North Point as murder after the victim died in hospital.
Construction worker Ng Chi-cheung, 42, was on his way home with two male friends, both aged 38, when the attack occurred at about 11.30pm on Saturday.
Ng slipped into a vegetative state and was put on life support until hospital doctors declared him dead at 5.27pm on Tuesday, shortly after his wife and relatives arrived from the mainland.
Anti-triad officers are hunting six men, thought to be aged 40 to 50 and 1.7 to 1.8 metres tall.
Initial investigation showed Ng accidentally bumped into a group of six men outside the Java Road market at the junction with Shu Kuk Street, police said.
A fight ensued and the gang punched and kicked Ng.
"His male companions tried to stop it but were also attacked," a police spokesman said. No weapon was used.
The attackers fled before police arrived. The three were taken to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan.
Ng's friends suffered minor injuries and were discharged after treatment.
The Hong Kong Island regional anti-triad squad is investigating. No one has been arrested.
Yesterday, police made a public appeal for witnesses. Anyone with information should call police on 2860 7850 or 6544 8419.
The latest death comes after two gruesome murders and a murder-suicide two months ago.
On March 15, the dismembered remains of an elderly couple were found in a Tai Kok Tsui flat. A day later, a man, 50, was hacked to death and his Filipino wife, 39, was seriously injured when they tried to stop his son, 18, from playing computer games at home in Pat Heung.
The next day, a woman, 47, hacked her tycoon lover to death before leaping from a West Kowloon residential block. The man, Peng Chi-hui, 49, also known as the "King of Fruits", was a Nanhai district member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Foshan.
