Junior Police Officer Association chair Joe Chan Cho-kwong denied that police officers were unhappy with their superiors, despite a leaked set of heated complaints and questions from a front line police Whatsapp group on Friday.
A leaked list of 20 complaints and questions was reported by Apple Daily on Friday showing officers unhappy with how little force was used on Monday in the Mongkok unrest and how officers on the front line were hurt. One asked “Why didn’t we use AR-15 (semi-automatic machine gun), bag bombs, rubber bullets, tear bombs, tear grenades?” Another asked “Why did front line members have to use their bodies to block bricks?”
“Front line members should have been able to fire over 100 shots and deal with the situation from a distance, why were front line officers pushed to die, using human flesh to block bricks? Now there is no morale among the front line officers, and it will be difficult to repair, how should the management respond?” said another one.
However, after a meeting with Commissioner of Police Stephen Lo Wai-chung on Friday, Chan denied that there was any dissatisfaction in the police force with the management, and said that he had already reflected all the requests and criticisms from the police officers to police management.
“We had some good suggestions for the commissioner. I believe we have confidence in the management. In the future the management will definitely make some changes and raise the morale of the police force,” said Chan.
He added that the morale of the police force was 100 per cent sufficient.
It is still unclear what further steps or changes Lo and the management will make. The police force has plans to include water cannons in its weapons portfolio in the future.
