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Mong Kok riot
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Police Tactical Unit officers react as rioters throw bricks at them in Mong Kok. Photo: AP

Mong Kok riot highlights Hong Kong police’s intelligence and response failings, former senior officer says

Questions asked about how police responded and why they didn’t see trouble coming

As the dust settles in riot-hit Mong Kok and dozens of suspects are rounded up following the violence earlier this week, questions are being asked about how the police responded and why they didn’t see trouble coming.

One former senior officer claimed that an understandable switch of focus which has seen manpower and resources ploughed into fighting crime and gathering intelligence in cyberspace may have taken the edge off traditional detective work, including the use of undercover agents in the field and the cultivation of informants.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying visits injured police officers after they were involved in the Mong Kok event. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Following the unprecedented events of Occupy when the densely packed, working class district of Kowloon – a curious patchwork of shopping malls, food stalls, traditional markets and triad-run brothels – emerged as a key centre of protest, “localist” groups have staged frequent nightly stunts and protests there.

READ MORE: The tradition of New Year food hawkers, and why Hongkongers are so attached to them

These splintered and marginal groups, which are seeking some form of independence for Hong Kong and campaign against what they see as the growing influence of Beijing in the city’s affairs, should be well-known to the police.

The senior ex-officer said: “If not before Occupy and certainly after it, it should have been a priority to make the right moves to make sure that good, solid, on-the-ground intelligence was flowing about what they were up to.

“That and the fact that Mong Kok has a well-established criminal underbelly should have meant that the force had the place sewn up, with eyes and ears everywhere. But that seems not to have been the case,” said the officer who spent more than 20 years in the force.

Police weren’t prepared for such an unexpectedly large event, said one former senior officer. Photo: SCMP Pictures
While the police have long been monitoring the movements and plans of radical groups in the cyber world since the Occupy movement and acknowledged that “something” would happen on the first day of the Lunar New Year, it seems they did not have the full picture.
The force did not see it coming to be honest, or at least not that violent and irrepressible. They thought it would be like the so-called gau wu [shopping tour] protests staged in Mong Kok every night
Senior police officer

“The force did not see it coming to be honest, or at least not that violent and irrepressible. They thought it would be like the so-called gau wu [shopping tour] protests staged in Mong Kok every night,” a police source close to the matter told the Post.

Widely circulated video footage shows a group of traffic police officers outnumbered and struggling to cope with a large group of rioters, which resulted in an officer firing two live rounds into the air.

The source close to the situation said force manpower was at its “weakest point” on Monday due to the Lunar New Year holiday, while a large number of officers were deployed to the Lunar New Year parade in Tsim Sha Tsui the same night.

“There were simply not enough people working. The unit had to call up people when the protest became aggressive,” the source said.

“The traffic fellows were there to clear the hawkers and carts in the first place. Who would have expected what happened next?”

READ MORE: Fishball spike: world searches for meaning in Hong Kong treat that helped spark a riot

Police Commissioner Stephen Lo Wai-chung has rejected accusations that the force underestimated the gravity of the situation.
Police Commissioner Lo Wai-chung. Photo: SCMP Pictures

He said the riot became violent each time more officers were deployed to the scene, but admitted that it took time for officers to move from one district to another.

It is understood that Emergency Unit and Police Tactical Unit teams were sent to the scene a significant time after trouble flared.

The Special Tactical Squad, used to suppress large-scale civil disturbances and riots, arrived in Mong Kok at about 6am on Tuesday – eight hours after the chaos broke out.

“It took time to gather 50 members scattered in different districts, gear up in Fanling headquarters and head to Mong Kok,” the source said.

Legislative Council security panel chairman Ip Kwok-him, from the Beijing-loyalist Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said there was a shortage of police manpower that night and officers experienced difficulties calling in reinforcements.

“The gau wu protests kept happening and there was nothing too special about them. That’s why police alertness may have been a bit low, and their manpower was obviously inadequate,” Ip said, adding that the incident showed that water cannon were needed to disperse crowds.

Panel member and lawyer James To Kun-sun agreed that police were slow to respond .

“It was a unique situation. It wasn’t because they didn’t have the manpower. It was because they never thought they would be facing a riot,” he said.

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