LettersAfter brutal Yuen Long attack, police must reflect on its intelligence and operational failures

I refer to “Stunned silence in Yuen Long” (July 23). Whichever way one looks at it, there has been an alarming failure of police management which has compromised the standards that Hongkongers have come to expect from our police force. In the worst case, people are seeing a conspiracy by connecting the dots between the conveners of the “Safeguard Hong Kong” rally held on July 20 to show solidarity with the police and the orchestrated thuggery inside Yuen Long MTR station, especially as one of the rally’s speakers had recommended caning people dressed in black.

Our senior officials are career bureaucrats and therefore are not streetwise, but even they must be able to see something profoundly unprofessional has taken place in Yuen Long. I commend the courage of the employee in the police’s internal support section who has spoken out against the shamefulness of the police’s claim about not having enough resources or intelligence to stop the Yuen Long attack (“Frustrated civil servants threaten industrial action”, July 26). I also completely agree with John J. Shanahan (“Leaders fail to offer solutions at time of crisis”, July 25) – our leaders must act, and be seen to act.