That happens with pretty much anything. There will always be people there purely to be destructive and violent and try to get away with it.

https://theinitium.com/article/20190728-evening-brief/

So for those that can read Chinese it seems that first aid attendant/ambulance have to wait for the HK police to give them "permission" in order to go and attend/help the protest. Once they receive a call for ambulance the first aid attendant have to report to the police, wait at this safe zone and once police said they can go, then they can. Basically the police can control when people can get help...... that's just disgusting what if the police "Forget" to give the first aid attendant ok to help the protest or purposely delay the first aid attendant and then the protest died? Who responsiblity is it then? Before the police would not stop ambulance or first aid to attend the protest but this time is very different. Also there are some reporters being asked by the police if they are reporting the police actions to the public. When the reporter ask the police for his ID, the police refuse and just keeps asking the reporter the same question.

As far as I know when the police were asked for their ID they are require to show it.

I don't get it. Where the fuck did Carrie Lam go? She went complete silence since the bill is dead announcement and the Yuen Long attack?

I do believe there are some bad apples in the protester side. Certain things they went over board and imo ruin the support protesters would get from the public. I felt the old man argument at the airport was a bit uncalled for, hounding the guy? Setting a cart full of cardboard on fire and rolling it over to the police is uncalled for. Bringing a bow and arrow is just asking for trouble. What happened to the whole idea of peaceful protest? I feel like there are two groups of people. Crazy ones, where you see them on the streets throwing bricks, arrows, weapons and all that shit. Yet you see the submissive ones in the MTR that won't fight back? (Same as the New Town fights). Cops are the same too, fucking passive on the street, just shooting and retreat. Yet when they see people running, they go ape shit and start hitting people.

I believe both sides are tired and exhausted. The police are people too, and the stress they go through has taken up on their performance. I feel they lack support from above.

Basically I feel the upper chains of commands should be responsible. The lack of response to the public protesters, the lack of support for your frontline police officers.

but shit, it's nothing like France though.

Also, that official release of the baton with the clips, i saw another clip online where it should just slide right off unless it's clamped tightly where it shouldn't slide any further.

Some of the white shirts were indeed cops:

not sure why you keep trying to make this point

i believe it's fair to say many of those educated in the relatively free world are able to form opinions through critical thinking

and unless it matches your's 100% = trolling confirmed

First off, IMO there's a huge difference between disagreeing, and trolling. I've had several people in here disagree with me, and I'm totally fine with it, and appreciate their insight. Threezero's posts are a good example of this. There are people I 100% disagree with, the ones who say we should just ignore China's atrocities, and "put our heads down" and just worry about making money. These people are clearly not trolling, clearly critically thinking, even if they don't see things my way.

But then you have people who are so far into the extreme, with the constant irrational posts just to be controversial. It seems like they're just here to annoy people and disrupt the thread. UNLESS they do think like that, which I've said many times is possible.

You say I think people who don't match me 100% are trolling, but I've never said that, and like the above examples, I appreciate and support such discourse. But when I see a Canadian person, who SHOULD be capable of critical thinking, post such propaganda crap, I think there are 3 possibilities (assuming the person hasn't lived in mainland China for a long period of time):

1) Trolling, (but not "100% confirmed" I never make that claim)
2) Just really not good at critical thinking, doesn't consider all sides. Basically just stubborn, or refuses to see things from other perspectives,
3) Actually a pro-totalitarian supporter of tyrannical dictatorship, and is 100% against human rights.

The last two are why I keep making the point that I am disappointed to see Canadians making these posts. #2 just means they are just ignorant, and that's fine. But if they aren't ignorant, and aren't trolling, the option #3 is the saddest of all. That's why I "keep trying to make this point". It legitimately saddens me. I was so disappointed in my wife's dad when we talked to him shortly after the protests started. I guess that feeling kind of affects me when I see it here (and I know he's not trolling, so I am happy to accept people here are, it kind of makes it easier)

Heard from a friend that police actually fired live ammo. Not sure if it is true or not though.

cop is a fucking idiot, you don't one man team a mob with a shotgun

Please fact check as much as you can before saying stuff like this. It is how false rumours spread.

As far as I can tell, no live rounds have been fired. If there was, the HK media would be all over it already. Since there is no such news, it is reasonable to assume that live rounds have not been fired. But obviously, there is a Baldy inspector that came out with a Remington 870, pointing it directly at protesters on multiple occassions. It is a miracle that he was still able to exercise that last shred of self restrain to not open fire on anyone.

IMO, it is completely inappropriate for the cops (and esp this officer) to bring the Remington out. Shotguns are not a crowd control or even riot control weapon. It is a close combat weapon and a defensive weapon capable of inflicting severe damage. IMO, there is absolutely no place for it in a crowd control situation.

I was going to suggest that maybe ICAC could do individual investigation on these cases (police brutality) post-protest, but according to Wiki (if sources are correct), the commissioner of ICAC is appointed by the government of China.

I wasn't sure that's why I said I am not sure if this is true or not.

The cop drew his gun because he was being chased and swarmed by protestors throwing objects. That said, the cop did not practice gun safety protocol as he had his finger already on the trigger. It has been reported by NOW and RTHK that the gun was loaded with bean bag bullets.

https://imgur.com/a/TdHOstM
https://i.imgur.com/elhnogd.png

And the cop replied to the journalist afterwards "I do not know the meaning of that hand gesture". BRUHhh

HK Police finest.

Was it a regular shotgun or a beanbag one? Beanbags make complete sense, a regular shotgun should never be used on a person unless as an extreme defensive measure. Hell all the way back in WWI Germany considered a shotgun "inhumane".

Uhm if that were the US or Canada even, you can bet the officer would pull his gun, and start firing after getting swarmed, and assaulted like that

https://www.hongkongfp.com/wp-conten...02/6VIaqXd.jpg

Reminds me of the fishball revolution.. But the reason why he held his gun out was that an officer was actually assaulted.

For sure. I feel that Hong Kong police are being extra scrutinized for these sort of tactics. I am not saying they are right in anyway, but when for example, RCMP/Ontario Police tried to instigate protestors at G20 by posing as them, it was brushed off and forgotten.

As I said before in this thread, you have 2 million people protesting and surrounding government buildings, how do you not expect the Police to react and take up opposition. Even if 1% of the protestors decide to do something stupid, it will cause massive chaos and even causalities to both the public, protestors and the police. You can say its a peaceful protest all you want, but a crowd that size is beyond manageable by anyone.

Sure, the methods and actions of the police now are less than professional, that is irrefutable, but they've been worn down so much its really hard for them to do their job under such pressure. There's nothing harder than being a cop in Hong Kong right now, nothing you do or don't do is right.

I fear that as the protests go on.. there will be less and less support and sympathy for the protestors. There really is no win win situation for Hong Kong.

Unless the government and police chief can have the balls to go up to the public, satisfy at least some of their demands and apologise for not listening in the first place.

but that's wishful thinking.

2 mil... more like less than 1000

beanbag guns are labelled and colored so you don't fuck up and shoot an actual round

Well the government did satisfy part of their demands, by "pausing" the bill (I know that's not what Hong Kong ultimately wants).

I'll say this again, the biggest concern aren't that the changes are happening too early, but the TYPE of changes that China wants to bring to Hong Kong. And those type of changes has absolutely everything, 100%, to do with the government that's in China right now.

And that's the message I feel it's being sent with this protest. It's necessary, and yet, pardon me for any ignorance, I fail to see so far, any meaningful steps or outcome in a posiive direction, that Hong Kong have achieve so far with this protest.

Maybe it's still to early to decide whether this protest was successful or not, but for the sake of Hong Kong, I hope the people will have enough energy to continue on with their quest.

edit:
I have been hearing things from family and friends that a lot of people are seriously considering moving back or away to some where else. Is that true or just people casually saying it?

ICAC was neutered in 2015 or so, after they busted Donald Tsang (conviction was just overturned last week actually, something that kind of got overlooked because of what's going on). If they still had any authority, we would NOT be seeing what we're seeing here.

Police and government used to protect the people, and were held accountable by the ICAC. Now their only goal is to protect the interests of Beijing, and are held accountable by no one.

That kind of adds to what people are fighting about now - not only are they putting Beijing-friendly people in power, the actual government and police force is becoming as corrupt as it is in China. Eventually we'll probably start seeing similarly lawlessness here, where the only ones who have to worry about breaking the law are if they are doing so against the state.

(before anyone gets mad, there's some hyperbole in there)

Some idiots shot fireworks into a crowd of protesters last night... Probably cops out of uniform lol

Seriously though, is this the first terrorist attack in HK since the 60's?

5 sent to hospital, plus they caused a bus to crash while getting away

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-49159820
More coverage of the university protests in australia
I've been in Aus for several months, near end of last year, and beginning of this year, they seem to have more Chinese there than we do surprised they aren't having massive pro China demonstrations

Oh they do have massive pro-China demonstrations, it's just that we don't hear about them. That alone is already ugly on its own, the even uglier part is, many of the Australian politicians have been bought by China to support these pro-China efforts. Furthermore, the (China) United Front people regularly organizes counter-demonstrations when local (Australian) groups organizes demonstrations that protests against Chinese-related stuff. It's only in recent years when Australians are finally waking up to how Communist China has infiltrated far too many parts of their lives that the local governments are scaling back on their overt efforts to bend over and please China.

All the local Hong Kong mainstream newspapers (and not just Apple Daily) are reporting it as some sort of Remington shotgun. I have not read any news report suggesting whether it was bean bag round or live ammo inside the shotgun. bcedhk has mentioned that local legitimate news channels (NOW and RTHK) are reporting that they are bean bag rounds, but I have not been able to locate that piece of news from their reporting yet. I'd appreciate it if someone can point me to those sources.

But even if the legit channels are reporting that bean bag rounds were in the Remington, my instant reaction is to think that this piece of news is coming from the HKPD PR dept. I am deeply distrustful of the entire HKPD at this point, and their PR personnell has been caught lying outright multiple times in the incidents since June, so I have very little reason to believe them. Until a bag shot has been fired from those Remingtons, I will continue to assume that they are live rounds instead of bag shots.