Police in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen next to Hong Kong had to pull their guns this week to stop two groups of people attacking each other with fire extinguishers and metal pipes, the Southern Metropolis News reports.
The brawl erupted in a wet market in Nanshan district on Sunday.
“If you touch me I’ll beat you to death,” someone shouted before the officers pulled their guns, the report said.
Similar violence, triggered by ownership disputes over stall spaces the market, have broken out time and again since January, as two rivals companies sent out dozens of young men to guard the market, the report said.
The conflict escalated in May, since when people began wearing helmets, gas masks and carrying pipes as weapons.
Surveillance footage of another conflict on June 10 showed that people throwing sticks, stools and bricks and using fire extinguishers to spray at the management office of the market, leaving a big hole in a glass door. Employees at the office had to lock the metal door grill from inside to prevent further damage.