Hong Kong police sentence driver who crashed into traffic cordon during 6km chase

But the driver accelerates suddenly in an attempt to squeeze between two vehicles and finds himself stuck. He reverses, hits a police officer posted behind the car and continues on his way until hitting the vehicle behind him.

The officers eventually managed to smash the car windows and open the driver's side door, pulling the suspect to the ground and subduing him.

Windy Tsui Suk-yee, deputy commander of the Kowloon City district police, said at a news conference Saturday that the officer was still in hospital and was in stable condition, while the nine civilians in the damaged private cars were “fine for now.”

“The police strongly condemn the arrested man. His behaviour was extremely irresponsible and disregarded the safety of the lives and property of road users and the police officers who were properly carrying out their duty at the scene,” she said.

Police first received a report of a suspicious vehicle in Wong Tai Sin at 7pm on Friday.

A source close to the case said a manager from a car rental company called police at 7:07 p.m. saying the Toyota had already been rented and had not been returned for some time.

“The caller told police that the car was equipped with a GPS tracker, revealing that it was being driven in Wong Tai Sin district,” the source said.

Tsui said the car was driven in Kowloon City and Hung Hom “in a very dangerous manner” an hour later, running at least five red lights, violating traffic signs five times and driving on the wrong side of the road three times.

The car then stopped along a side road, just outside 58 Princess Margaret Road, at 8pm.

Tsui said that at the time, police were trying to direct traffic into one lane “to observe the suspicious vehicle” when the driver spotted the officers and attempted to flee.

The civilian vehicles blocking the car's path were not part of a deliberate attempt to create a roadblock during the operation, she said.

“The main objective of our 'demanding operation' was not to intercept this vehicle, but to observe where it was,” the deputy district commander said.

“We diverted traffic 400 meters away [from the car]but unfortunately, when the driver saw the road users and our police officers [stopping] on the other side of the road he acted recklessly and irresponsibly, without regard to the risk to the lives of others, by colliding with the vehicles of other members of the public.

A driver surnamed Chow, who was in one of the cars that was hit, said a police van had intervened to stop traffic before the tragedy occurred.

“I saw a police car slowly coming out, so I slowed down and waited for a while. I thought there was a traffic accident ahead. Then a car hit our car from behind with a bang and overtook us from the side with great force,” he told local media.

Chow said the front wheel of his car got stuck in the suspect's vehicle during his second break-in attempt.

“I turned the wheel and pressed the accelerator to block the car as best I could. The police got him out of there and everything went well.”

Tsui said the officers did not fire their weapons in order to ensure the safety of nearby civilians.

Officers from the police's counter-terrorism unit were also called to the scene.

Police are still assessing the suspect's mental state and looking for possible links, she said.

Police discovered that the suspect had rented the car before his driver's license expired. Another person's ID card was also found in the vehicle.

The man was arrested for driving furiously, assaulting police officers, drug trafficking, taking transport without permission, driving without a license and without liability insurance, and possession of another person's identity card.

A source close to the incident said the officer hit by the car, an officer from the Kowloon West Emergency Unit, suffered abdominal injuries and was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei.

Police Commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee said Saturday that he had visited the officer the night before and that his injuries were not serious. He also thanked the team for their dedicated work and for prioritizing the protection of residents.

While police said on Saturday that all civilians involved were fine, a spokesperson revealed the night before that a female driver of one of the vehicles hit by the suspect's car had suffered a neck injury and had also been sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Officers from the Kowloon City District Crime Squad are in charge of the case.

According to a 2018 police social media post, a demanding operation refers to deploying officers to strategic locations to “conduct observations and set up roadblocks to intercept suspects.”

A regional police command center will activate the protocol in cases where a suspect has escaped by road after committing a serious crime.

Police had previously been accused of using civilian cars as roadblocks after two people were killed in an incident in Fanling in February 2018.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who was security minister at the time, told the Legislative Council two months after the incident that police roadblock operations should not put other road users at risk.

Police had also promised a full review of the measures and training in vehicle interceptions in light of the controversy.