Police officers have drawn criticism for manhandling a schoolboy in Sham Shui Po yesterday afternoon after a woman accused him of stealing.
Video posted by Apple Daily shows officers holding down the screaming boy as a middle-aged woman in black tells police that the boy tried to steal her sign.
The boy is heard in the video pleading with officers, saying “I didn’t.”
The fracas was filmed by a Hong Kong-born Indian man who gave his name as “Jacky.” He told the newspaper that the boy was possibly taking photos next to the sign, which then fell over.
The boy then made a run for it after the woman tried to grab him, but was caught after the woman called on officers standing nearby to stop him and accused him of stealing her sign.
The boy, who is in distress, is heard screaming and knocking over boxes of goods from nearby stalls as bystanders tell officers to cuff him. Police eventually manage to subdue him and carry him into a police van.
Jacky told the newspaper: “They shouldn’t have treated him like that, they should have spoken to him slowly.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMpWTh9MRbo
Jacky is then later filmed confronting the woman about the incident, telling her that the boy did not steal anything.
She then retorts: “I said he broke something,” to which Jacky responds “no, you said he stole something.”
According to the newspaper, the boy’s parents picked him up from the station and no arrests were made.
Netizens were quick to criticize police for the way they manhandled the boy, and also for not looking into the situation properly and going by the word of one witness.
“The kid was unarmed and scared, yet the officers did not try to calm him down and instead treated him like a thug,” remarked one.
