Police arrested six men last night in connection with white-clad thugs’ vicious assault on anti-extradition protesters, journalists, and everyday passengers at the Yuen Long MTR station on Sunday night.
Senior Superintendent Chan Tin-chu of the New Territories North Regional Crime Headquarters told reporters last night that the six men, aged 24 to 54, were detained for unlawful assembly and arrested in their homes in the Yuen Long and Tin Shui Wai areas.
Chan said some of the suspects had a triad background, while others had more mundane professions.
Ming Pao reports that some of those involved with Sunday’s attack were members of the 14K and Wo Shing Wo triad gangs, two of the biggest such gangs in Hong Kong.
The announcement comes in the midst of a crisis of confidence in the city’s police force over its handling of the city’s long-running anti-extradition protest movement, which was only exacerbated by authorities’ failure to intervene in the Yuen Long assaults — which went on for about 40 minutes — as they happened.
Yesterday, Police Commissioner Stephen Lo was forced to publicly respond to accusations that police didn’t do enough to protect people in Yuen Long, as well as widespread claims on social media, fueled by images of suspected thugs and police officers appearing to speak with each other on Sunday night, that police were actually in cahoots with the attackers.
In one video being widely circulated online, for instance, two officers can be seen walking out of Yuen Long MTR station as the men in white shirts later linked to the attacks gather inside the station’s concourse.
Police in riot gear only arrived at the station some 35 minutes later, after the assailants had dispersed, and angry residents went to the police station in Tin Shui Wai to file police reports only to have the officers inside shutter their gate.
Lo told reporters at the press conference yesterday that the delay in sending officers to Yuen Long was because most of the officers from other districts had been redeployed to Hong Kong Island to cover Sunday’s major rally, which ended in clashes between protesters and police in Sheung Wan. He added that officers shuttered the doors to the police station because of the large crowd that had gathered, and vehemently denied accusations of police working with the triads.
Meanwhile, Sunday’s violence in Yuen Long has sent a chill through the neighborhood, with shops and supermarkets being shut as early as 3pm.
One retired civil servant, surnamed Chan, who has lived in the area for more than 10 years told HK01 that he has thrown out all of his black t-shirts — the garment of choice for anti-extradition protesters — out of fear of being targeted by triad gangs in the street.
A student, also surnamed Chan, told Headline Daily that it felt like the town was preparing for a T10 signal typhoon.
