A policeman shot himself with his revolver in the back of a patrol van at Mong Kok police station yesterday.
Constable Kong Wai-tat, 37, a police driver attached to the Kowloon West emergency unit, suffered a single gunshot wound to his chest and was in critical condition in Queen Elizabeth Hospital last night.
'It was an attempted suicide,' a senior police officer said.
'He was conscious when he was discovered in the rear passenger seat of the police vehicle, which was locked from inside. The initial examination showed that a single shot was fired from his revolver and the bullet went through his body.'
Officers from the Kowloon West regional crime unit are investigating whether debts caused the constable to try to take his life.
Kong, who joined the police force about 18 years ago, was on the 11pm to 7am shift and had returned to Mong Kok police station in Prince Edward Road West for a meal break at about 4am. His colleagues began looking for him after failing to contact him by phone and walkie-talkie.
At about 7am, Kong was found slumped in the back seat of the patrol van in the station car park. It was not the van he had been driving earlier.
