‘I should have just let them stay,’ says former top policeman on trial for alleged assault during Occupy protests
Retired superintendent Frankly Chu has second thoughts about leading an operation to clear the streets during protests that paralysed thoroughfares across the city for 79 days
A retired senior police officer on trial for using excessive force during Hong Kong’s 2014 Occupy protests said on Thursday that had he known he would be prosecuted for doing his job, he “should have just let them” stay in the streets.
“Perhaps I should have applied to the Police Force not to take part in the [clearance] operation,” former superintendent Frankly Chu said after 37 years in the force. “Because I was just months away from my retirement.”
The 57-year-old also revealed that he never held any grudges or hatred towards “anyone in the Occupy movement”, which paralysed thoroughfares across the city for 79 days in protesters’ fight for greater democracy.
Chu is facing one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm after he struck Osman Cheng Chung-hang, 28, allegedly in the neck with a baton outside Shanghai Commercial Bank in the busy shopping district on November 26, 2014.
Chu does not dispute that he hit Cheng, but says his actions did not cross the line into criminal assault.
His second day of testimony not only offered a glimpse into police tactics during the civil disobedience movement but also provided a rare perspective from a frontline commander.