HK police fires rubber bullet at protesters and civilians at point blank range | Hacker News Reader

HK police fires rubber bullet at protesters and civilians at point blank range

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81 pointsisaaafc15 comments

This is just one of the many incidents of police brutality that happened in the latest protest in Hong Kong. All the cases quoted below (and many more) happened just yesterday. Baton beating, framing protesters, firing tear gases in residential areas have been a "norm" to HK police and have happened every time there was a protest, so 2-3 times a week on average in almost every district in HK. They are not quoted. Numerous similar brutalities have happened throughout the protests in the past 2 months.

Some other cases are: 1. Police ground a protester's face on the ground, breaking his teeth and injuring his face: https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/08/12/video-hong-kong-police...

2. Police shot "bean bag bullets" at a protester's eye, rupturing her right eye and caused permanent blindness: https://news.now.com/home/hot/player?newsId=358763&hot=1

3. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into MTR (subway) station at normal operating hours: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3022348...

4. Police disguised as protesters to incite to riot and capture real protesters: (Same link as (1))

5. While they were insistent and brutal in arresting protesters, HK police assisted and protected triads AGAIN as they attack civilians: https://www.facebook.com/standnewshk/videos/1256615241186946...

There's no mention of permanent blindness in your 2nd link.

And what's wrong with firing tear gas and rubber bullets during "normal operating hours"? There was probably no legitimate non-protesting traveller in the Kwai Fong MTR station anymore. I don't think you can ever be 100% sure that there are no innocent by-standers in the crowd. So what is the police supposed to do? Never use force against protesters?

Same thing happens in France where police are filmed gazing and beating some people out (even old people)[1]

Someone already lost an eye few months ago.[2]

President guard is disguised as a policeman and beat some people on the streets. [3]

And on and on. The issue is that people are starting to lose trust in how the police and the gouvernment operate and are seeing that some actions don't seem fair to them.

[1] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDom3fi67ew [2] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMXeosboyjg [3] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benalla_affair

Are we seriously trying to compare what is happening in Honk Kong (and rest of China, that doesn't appear on TV), with the almost infinite patience that the french police shows, with the permanent protests in France about anything they feel like protesting violently against that particular week?

I still remember French setting fire to dozens of cars in several different protests, while the police was too afraid to intervene, or be accused of curtailing those "peaceful" citizens rights to express themselves as they see fit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChFHvi3ldec

https://www.dw.com/en/protesters-burn-cars-in-north-paris-su...

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/french-rioters-set-fire-to-cars...

> the almost infinite patience

Well, not that much, the protests in question could probably be far more peaceful if the CRS had a a lighter hand on the tear gas grenades, the flash ball guns, the sticks and everything.

Just to illustrate, the last year protests saw the reappearance of the "Voltigeurs" (cops on motorcycles with sticks and flash ball guns), these units were disbanded in the 80ies after the death of a student.

And the casualties list is pretty significant, 2 deaths, several hundreds injured (including a few lost eyes and hands).

Are these protests borderline riots? yes. But the Police response is also quite bad. I'm personally wondering if it's a conscientious political decision to have an heavy hand to breed violence in order to then 1) discourage other people from protesting 2) discredit a movement.

Granted, France is not yet at the level of China, we don't see opponents to Macron being jailed or disappearing (even if some developments are quite worrisome).

The State has a legitimacy for violence through its police and military forces that individual citizen don't have, and that's a good thing. But it also mean that the State must be extremely cautious about its use of violence to keep a moral high ground, specially in the context of a Democracy.

Lastly, History is generally not very kind on violent repression of protests and riots, even when at the time, the vast majority agreed with said repression.

The title is incorrect, they were not firing rubber bullets but rather they were using compressed gas pepperball markers.

This reminds me of my young son recently. He was standing beside his friend who was playing a tennis game with the Apple TV remote. The remote had come flying out of her hand on a full swing, and cracked the TV screen.

  "Did you throw it?"
  "No! Tilly did!"
  "Did you bump her when she was swinging?"
  "No!"
  "Did you touch her at all?"
  "No!" (he's holding a tiny 80s troll figurine in his hand)
  "Did the troll toy touch her while you were holding it?"
  "Yes..."

My kids are letter of the law literal too. It's hard not to smile at the wrong time.

This reminds me of mobile robots I do cartography and "city planning" for. You can draw all kinds of complicated road networks of one-ways and no-gos and speed limits but the robot will still find that little sliver between two polys and barrel down it at full speed going the wrong way.

Although I haven't been able to fact-check this myself, I honestly have no idea why you're being downvoted.

Compressed gas pepperball markers is also something used in riot control. I'm not very familiar with guns and all, but I wouldn't be surprised that

1) the two have different intended uses and different intended ranges;

2) one hurts more than the other (though I don't know which one).

factfindingisfn's statement is either factually correct or factually wrong. But I saw him downvoted with no explanation. As of this writing, the other comment in this thread doesn't seem to address the factual claim at all.

Maybe if the protestors werent so intent on disrupting everyday life and kept things peaceful in the first place the police wouldn't have to clear them out using such means. These protests are a serious nuisance and everyone is paying the consequences for the protestors actions

Are you seriously defending the police here? This is way beyond the reaction you'd see in pretty much any western democratic country.

Protests (again, in western democratic countries) can be peaceful, and typically are peaceful provided the police don't escalate things.

No I don't agree with the police beating the protestors here but neither do I agree with protestors throwing bricks at police and setting off petrol bombs or breaking off a policeman finger. You can't exactly expect them to be sitting ducks, it's a natural reaction so stop complaining and making a fuss, it's what your gonna get right or wrong. I for one would like to be able to spend my weeknights outside without the fear of getting hurt. And also for Hong Kong not to be some sort of safe harbour for criminals but that's probably going to just set off more fireworks so I'll just be happy with peace on the streets again

On the other hand, the HK police had their chance to be competent and impartial, and demonstrated themselves not to be a professional constabulary, but the tools of the state.

"Natural reaction" it may well be, but they're meant to be a professional police force; not a street gang.

Those totalitarian thugs (and their sycophants online) deserve far worse, and gods willing they'll get it.

Yes, everyone should be good little sheep and do what Big Brother says.

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