Hong Kong violence escalates with bullets, tear gas, man on fire

Bloomberg

Hong Kong saw one of its most violent days since protests began in June, with clashes involving police and protesters leaving downtown paralysed, transportation networks hobbled and two men clinging to life.
The chaos started on Monday when demonstrators, still angry after the first protest-related death last week, moved to disrupt the morning commute.
A scuffle ensued outside a subway station in which a police officer shot a protester at point blank, all of which was caught on a video that went viral within moments. He’s currently in intensive care.
The shooting spawned calls for a flash mob at noon in Central, where protesters blocked roads in one of Hong Kong’s premier shopping
districts. Police fired tear gas to clear them, leading to chaotic scenes of office workers ducking into luxury malls to wash out their eyes with water.
Around the same time, video emerged of a man doused with petrol and lit on fire. Hu Xijin, an editor with China’s state-run Global Times newspaper, said the victim had “openly disagreed with radical protesters” at the time of the attack. He’s currently in critical condition, according to hospital authorities, who said almost 50 people were
injured.
The shocking videos raised fears that things could get even worse, as the pro-democracy protests show no signs of letting up after five months of increasingly violent demonstrations opposing Beijing’s grip over the city.
Hong Kong stocks on Monday saw their biggest loss in about three months, banks set people home early. “We’re afraid that the escalation is really on both sides, but more so on the police side,” said Fernando Cheung, a pro-democracy lawmaker who has mediated between police and protesters during the city’s unrest. “It will become more chaotic and more violent — that seems to be inevitable.”
Hong Kong’s government urged in a statement for protesters to remain “calm and rational.” Chief Executive Carrie Lam, whose move to introduce legislation allowing extraditions to the mainland initially sparked the protests, called it “wishful thinking” that violence would prompt her to make any concessions such as an independent inquiry into police violence or for the ability to pick and choose their own leaders.
“I’m making this statement clear and loud here — that will not happen,” she said in an address, flanked by members of her cabinet. “Violence is not going to give us any solution to the problems that Hong Kong is facing. Our joint priority now as a city is to end the violence and to return Hong Kong to normal as soon as possible.”
The police defended the officer who fired his weapon, while suspending another who deliberately rode his motorcycle into a group of demonstrators. Police dismissed as “totally false and malicious” online rumours that they had ordered officers to use their firearms “at will.”
The reinvigorated violence followed a weekend of demonstrations that resulted in almost 90 arrests. Demonstrators angered over the death of a student who was injured earlier near a recent clash between police and protesters vandalised shops and train stations while throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station, blocking roads, hurling objects at police.
“Police reiterate that no violent behaviour will be tolerated,” the police said in a statement. “Police will continue to take resolute enforcement action so as to safeguard the city’s public safety and bring all lawbreakers to justice.”