Police officers aimed guns at protestors in the Tsuen Wan district of Hong Kong on Sunday. The confrontations followed a peaceful march by more than 10,000 people.
Police officers aimed guns at protestors in the Tsuen Wan district of Hong Kong on Sunday. The confrontations followed a peaceful march by more than 10,000 people.
"HONG KONG — Hong Kong police officers on Sunday drew pistols on protesters who were charging them with sticks, and one appeared to fire a warning shot into the air after another officer fell, as a weekend of violent clashes brought an end to nearly two weeks of restraint.
The police on Sunday also used water cannon trucks for the first time since protests began and fired rounds of tear gas and plastic bullets at protesters who threw bricks and firebombs.
The confrontations in the Tsuen Wan area followed a peaceful march by more than 10,000 people. But in a pattern that has been established for months, more aggressive protesters began building barriers on city streets using sidewalk railings and bamboo poles. Soon, large numbers of police officers in riot gear arrived.
Protestors charged the police with sticks.
Protestors charged the police with sticks.
By early evening, the air was swirling with tear gas. The police unleashed water cannons against barriers and in the general direction of protesters.
“I don’t totally agree with what students do now, such as throwing bricks,” said Celine Wong, 38, a nurse at a private clinic who joined the march. “However, what they do is eclipsed by the violence performed by the government now.”
As the protest appeared to die down at night, a small group of demonstrators smashed up the entry way of a mah-jongg parlor they said had sheltered men who had attacked them weeks earlier. Then a group clashed with the police.
Protesters damaged shops that they believed had ties to pro-government supporters in the Tsuen Wan district.
Protesters damaged shops that they believed had ties to pro-government supporters in the Tsuen Wan district.
Jay Lau, 30, an employee at Hong Kong’s airport, said he saw a small group of officers fighting with protesters wielding bamboo sticks and metal rods. The protesters were pushing the officers down Sha Tsui Road when, suddenly, Mr. Lau said, he heard a gunshot. He said he did not see who fired.
The episode mirrored a similar encounter in 2016, when a police officer drew his gun and fired into the air after a colleague was charged by protesters.
Earlier Sunday, people who said they were relatives of the Hong Kong police rallied under pouring rain to criticize the government for its inability to find a solution to the crisis that has left front-line officers clashing with protesters for weeks on end.
A police vehicle equipped with a water cannon in Tsuen Wan on Sunday. It was the first time since since the protests began that the trucks were used.
A police vehicle equipped with a water cannon in Tsuen Wan on Sunday. It was the first time since since the protests began that the trucks were used.
The protests began in June over a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. Since suspending the legislationthat set off the protests, Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, has done little to respond to the protests, leaving the police force as the most public face of the government.
The protest by police supporters on Sunday was small, with about 200 people attending, and police officials said it did not represent the views of the whole force. But the organizers’ concerns that respect for the police force is eroding can be seen in confrontational protests, when officers are often bombarded with abuse from residents and bystanders.
Ivy Yuen, 40, works for a trading company in Hong Kong and has regularly attended this summer’s protests. But she came to the police families’ rally on Sunday because, she said, she could sympathize with the difficult position that officers had found themselves in.
In a pattern that has been established for months, more aggressive protesters began building barriers on city streets.
In a pattern that has been established for months, more aggressive protesters began building barriers on city streets.
“There are still some good policemen working for Hong Kong,” she said. “Unfortunately, the government chooses not to do anything.”
“We are all so helpless in this moment,” she continued, “everybody in Hong Kong: those against the protesters, the protesters themselves, the police, everybody.”
A march on Saturday ended with the police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters who had thrown rocks and at least one gasoline bomb. That clash ended a nearly two-week period of relative calm that saw some standoffs, but not the use of tear gas.
The Hong Kong police fired tear gas at protesters in the Tsuen Wan district on Sunday.
The Hong Kong police fired tear gas at protesters in the Tsuen Wan district on Sunday.
It also followed two large, peaceful demonstrations that showed the continued strength and unity of the protest movement: a march by hundreds of thousands one week ago and the formation of human chains, illuminated by cellphone lights, across miles of Hong Kong on Friday.
The police said that in Saturday’s protests, they arrested 19 men and 10 women, ages 17 to 52, during dispersal operations in the Kwun Tong, Wong Tai Sin and Sham Shui Po neighborhoods. A friend of Ventus Lau, the organizer of the Kwun Tong march, said he had also been arrested.
The rally by supporters of the police, organized under the slogan “We Are Not Enemies,” criticized the government’s use of the police force to manage a political crisis. Its organizers called for an independent committee to investigate the cause of the protests and the official response, and said that misbehavior by some officers was causing the relationship between police officers and the public to “fall into a tragic abyss.”
An antigovernment rally in Kwai Chung on Sunday. Other people who said they supported the Hong Kong police rallied on Sunday to criticize the government for its inability to find a solution to the crisis.
An antigovernment rally in Kwai Chung on Sunday. Other people who said they supported the Hong Kong police rallied on Sunday to criticize the government for its inability to find a solution to the crisis.
Police commanders distanced the force from the event. Foo Yat-ting, a senior police superintendent, said, “It does not represent the police force or the four police associations at all.”
Mrs. Lam said on Saturday that she had met with a group of people, identified in local news reports as former officials and some prominent politicians, to hear ideas for building “a platform for dialogue.”
“I know that in the current predicament, the grievances of the community are deep,” she wrote on Facebook, adding that some people were “very unhappy” with the government’s unwillingness to respond to protesters’ demands, including a full withdrawal of the extradition bill.
Protesters on Sunday. The demonstrations began in June over a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.
Protesters on Sunday. The demonstrations began in June over a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China.
“I don’t expect conversations to easily untie the knot, stop demonstrations, or provide solutions to problems, but to continue to struggle is not a way forward,” she added.
Hong Kong’s subway operator said on Sunday that for the second day in a row it was closing stops in an area where a police-authorized protest was planned. Chinese state news media had been highly critical of the subway operator, the MTR Corporation, after special service trains were used to disperse protesters from a station in the satellite town of Yuen Long on Wednesday.
That special train service helped prevent a clash on Wednesday, but the subway operator was denounced by The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, as “working hand in glove with rioters.”
The MTR Corporation said on Sunday that it was closing three stations served by two lines in the Tsuen Wan area because of the protests, after closing four stations in the Kwun Tong area on Saturday. The closings were criticized not just for preventing participation in authorized protests, but also for inconveniencing other rail users. Graffiti in the Choi Hung station called the MTR “party rail.”
Adi Lau, the MTR operations director, said in a message posted Saturday on Facebook that the violence and vandalism in MTR stations in recent months had been “the biggest challenge that MTR had faced in four decades.”
He said the decision to close stations was done in conjunction with the police force and other government departments, and was made out of safety considerations, including concerns from employees who felt threatened.
The MTR also obtained a court injunction on Friday against anyone interfering with train operations, damaging property or causing disturbances. Two weeks ago the airport authority also obtained an interim injunction to restrict access after protests led to canceled flights, chaos and violence in the airport."