A Hong Kong police officer shot at masked protesters on Monday morning hitting one in the torso and another one in the chest area. The individual fell to the ground clutching their left side and was rushed to the hospital. According to hospital authorities, three people were admitted from the incident, one with a gunshot wound.
This sparked anger among the crowd, not unlike to reaction of the recent death of a student, spilt into the rush hour commute and wreaked fresh chaos.
Footage showed a police officer drawing his sidearm in the district of Sai Wan Ho as he tried to detain a masked person at a junction that had been blocked by protesters.
The shooting was broadcast live on Facebook. It is the latest escalation in more than five months of pro-democracy protests that have engulfed the international financial hub and battered its reputation.
The protests that have been going on for 24 weeks are the most live-streamed ever. They are streamed almost every day on television screens at restaurants and bars; taxis also play live-streams on their dashboards and commuters stream the protests on their phones. The reason for this is the unceasing live-streaming of events are beamed to tens of thousands of watchers in real-time, then archived.
Stand News and HK01, newspaper Apple Daily, publicly funded broadcaster RTHK and student news organisations have devoted huge resources to provide consistent coverage of the rallies and clashes. News websites have been carrying live feeds of the protests.
Beijing has refused to give in to a movement calling for greater democratic rights and police accountability to the financial hub that has been upended due to increasingly violent rallies.
Tensions soared on Friday following the death a 22-year-old student who died after falling from a ledge in a car park, reportedly trying to flee from police tear gas. The first incident of shooting was on October 1 and then on October 4, a teenage boy was shot in his leg.
With no political solution on the table, officers have been left to battle violent protesters and are now loathed by large chunks of the deeply polarised population.
Immediately after Monday's shooting, crowds of locals gathered to hurl insults at officers who responded with pepper spray and multiple arrests were made.
Police also fired multiple rounds of tear gas at residents and then retreated, ceding the junction once more. The police who said that protesters had set up barricades at multiple locations across the city, warned the demonstrators to "stop their illegal acts immediately"
On Sunday, protesters vandalised a restaurant perceived as being pro-Beijing, overturning tables and smashing glass panels. They also vandalised shopping malls and a train station.
