POLICE have admitted they received a warning call about a suicide bid an hour before Wednesday's arson attack at Immigration Tower, but officers deployed there apparently did not search migrants.
Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Lau Chun-sing said the force would review its procedures to seek improvements and to see if mistakes were made in handling the emergency call.
Mr Lau said that at 5pm on Wednesday the 999 console received a call from one of the overstayers on the 13th floor of Immigration Tower warning of an attempted suicide.
'Police officers were deployed to the scene to investigate and appropriate actions were taken [with the consent of the Immigration Department],' Mr Lau said.
He would not be drawn on whether body checks of the overstayers may have found bottles of inflammable substances and added that 'different situations required different handling'.
'I do not have the details in my hands whether body checks were conducted, so I cannot say whether body checks could have prevented the incident,' Mr Lau said.
