Commissioner Stephen Lo Wai-chung called meeting between the force’s management and all four police staff associations
NIALL FRASER AND EDDIE LEE
NIALL.FRASER@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Friday, 12 February, 2016, 11:05am
UPDATED : Friday, 12 February, 2016, 4:46pm
Some frontline officers feel that different decisions over tactics and equipment could have prevented so many police from being injured during the Mong Kok riot. Photo: AP
Hong Kong’s police commissioner has promised to review the tactics used during Monday night’s Mong Kok riot, nearly four days after the clashes that resulted in scores of frontline officers being injured.
Stephen Lo Wai-chung’s pledge came after he and his top deputies met officers’ representatives on Friday morning, amid growing rank-and-file anger over decisions by senior officers during the riot.
Junior Police Officers’ Association chairman Joe Chan Cho-kwong said after the meeting that frontline staff had informed management of their views.
“We discussed the tactics and equipment used in our operations [on Monday night], and also the morale issues,” Chan told the media.
He said the commissioner had promised to review the issues and inform his junior officers of the results, without saying when scrutiny would be completed.
It is understood that Lo called the meeting to address a deepening feeling among officers that different calls over tactics and equipment could have prevented so many officers being injured in some of the worst street violence in Hong Kong’s recent history. More than 90 officers were hurt.
Collectively, the four staff associations represent all of the force’s 28,000 men and women in uniform, from police constables to senior commanders.
Deputy commissioner for operations, Tony Wong Chi-hung, and senior assistant commissioner, Alan Lau Yip-shing, also attended the meeting from the management side.
The South China Morning Post earlier reported that much of the growing anger surrounded bosses’ refusal to allow the use of CS gas and rubber bullets to keep the mob at bay.
“The feeling is that this refusal led in significant part to so many officers being hurt,” a security source told thePost.
READ MORE: Beijing brands instigators of Mong Kok riot Hong Kong ‘separatists’
But on Friday Chan said: “We are not disappointed with management. We have confidence in them. We believe measures will be put in place to improve frontline officers’ morale.”
He said he had more understanding of the deployment on Monday night after the 90-minute meeting, and added that junior officers had shown solidarity and vowed to continue performing their duties.
He did not give further details about what remedies were discussed during the meeting, saying they were confidential.
Neither the commissioner nor representatives of other staff associations attending Friday’s session met the media.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1912289/hong-kong-police-top-brass-meet-representatives-frontline
