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Charlotte Parsons

POLICE are not properly trained to handle guns, a coroner's jury said yesterday.

   In the wake of a fatal police shooting, the jury recommended that new recruits receive better training in the use of firearms and the circumstances in which firearms should be used.

  Last May, two bystanders were mowed down by a runaway van whose driver had been shot by police.

  Wanted criminal Kwong Wai-yuen, 20, died after the bullet punctured his lung.

  The three-person jury ruled Kwong's death was a lawful killing. They passed a verdict of accidental death on both pedestrians.

  In addition to improved firearms training, the jury also recommended that police use the tragedy itself 'as a case study for training in the use of firearms'.

  Police spokesman Peter Randall said the force would give both recommendations serious consideration.

  But he said trainees already received intensive fire arms training, bolstered by periodic refresher courses.

  Mr Randall said police scrutinised each 'open fire incident' for any lessons that might be learned from it.

   But he said no amount of training could prepare an officer for all possible scenarios.

   'The bottom line is always that the man faced with the situation has to make a split-second decision,' Mr Randall said. 'You simply cannot allow for every possible circumstance.'    The three deaths occurred during an anti-burglary operation in Tan Kwai Village, Yuen Long, on May 25 last year.

   A team of plain-clothes officers had been told to look out for Kwong, who had jumped bail while awaiting trial for drug trafficking and was wanted for burglary.

   Constable Wong Wai-hing, 25, said he spotted Kwong loitering near an empty house with Lam Kar-lei, 16.

   Police arrested the teenager, but Kwong escaped across the rooftops.

   The young fugitive leapt into a white van owned by Chan Chi-keung.

  Mr Chan, 32, fled and Kwong vaulted into the driver's seat just as Constable Wong Wai-hing, 25, arrived and began trying to force his way into the vehicle.

  Wong's partner, Constable Kam Chi-hang, 23, shattered the passenger window with the butt of his revolver in a bid to unlock the door.

  But the van moved off, trapping the policeman's left hand and dragging him backwards.

  Constable Wong testified that he fired the fatal shot through the windscreen as Kwong drove towards him.

  He then collapsed unconscious after the van struck him.

  The runaway van zig-zagged down a hill, smashing into the pedestrians.

  Building site supervisors Lam Ching-cheung, 39, and Tse Ka-hoi, 45, died after the runaway van swerved into them.



Jury urges more police training after fatal shot