Letters | Hong Kong protests and police action: don’t jump the gun

The tone of Mr Martin Purbrick’s article (“What lessons can be learned from the Hong Kong police’s handling of the 2019 protests?”, June 3) reveals he seeks more to jump on the Hong Kong- government-bashing bandwagon than to make an objective assessment on the police force’s handling of the 2019 protests.

If anything, for someone who served as policeman, I’m surprised he’s not more understanding of the immense pressure the police were put under at the time. I’ll serve as the devil’s advocate, though there isn’t anything remotely devilish about the Hong Kong Police Force.

Some even implied that the force was made mostly of mainlanders or that they took some kind of perverted pleasure in confronting the people they served, but the unfortunate harassment they faced in their own personal lives showed unequivocally that they are part of the same society.

One of the issues was that protesters couldn’t take it out on the government and thus they went for the police. 

Was it possible that the police may have used excessive force? Yes, but many continue to forget there is a human being behind that uniform. It is fair to expect restraint from the police when one is hurling insults, another matter when bricks and Molotov cocktails are being used.