Gallant Garden burial approved for officer

A veteran police officer who collapsed on a jogging track and died less than a month after being shot in the thigh during a subway scuffle will be buried in the official burial ground for heroes.

Station Sergeant Wong Siu-pang, 44, will be given a police funeral service at the Universal Funeral Parlour in Hung Hom this morning before being buried in Gallant Garden in Wo Hop Shek.

The cemetery is reserved for public servants who die in the line of duty but a police spokeswoman said Wong had died while on sick leave recuperating from a gunshot injury inflicted on duty.

The possibility that the injury - caused by an emotionally disturbed constable who had grabbed another policeman's revolver - had contributed to Wong's death could not be ruled out, she said.

Wong, attached to the Hong Kong Island section of the Police Tactical Unit, had been on sick leave since he was shot on the stairway of a pedestrian underpass in Aberdeen on September 6.

He was discharged from Queen Mary Hospital on September 14 and had been due to return to work on October 19. On October 3 Wong was jogging with colleagues at the sports ground in Wan Chai at about 8pm when he complained of feeling dizzy and collapsed. He was taken unconscious to Ruttonjee Hospital, where he was declared dead by doctors at about 4am.