Opinion | Hong Kong protests: police under threat should first be able to use a stun gun, rather than live bullets

The shooting of a teenage protester in a close-proximity clash should prompt a review of the police arsenal. The taser stun gun, commonly used in law enforcement around the world, should be considered

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Shells are left on the ground after a night of clashes between the police and protesters in Yuen Long on July 27. Police have so far fired over 1,000 rounds of rubber bullets and beanbag rounds in an attempt to quell the protests. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 9:30am, 6 Oct 2019Updated: 10:21am, 6 Oct 2019

Hong Kong has literally gone ballistic. The grievous wounding of an 18-year-old student protester, shot in the chest by a police officer, has polarised an already fractured society.

Although the shooting was defended as a legal and proportionate means of self-defence by the police commissioner, civil rights groups and the Hong Kong Public Doctors’ Association have decried it as unjustified. But there’s one thing everybody can agree on: astonishment that it didn’t happen sooner.

The current cycle of street demonstrations has seen the extraordinary use of crowd control measures by police seeking to disperse and suppress violent protesters. Targeted measures have included the firing of over 1,000 rubber bullets and beanbag rounds. These less-lethal projectiles have narrow safety margins and worrying injury profiles, particularly at close range (as several eye injuries already testify). Fired from riot guns and shotguns, they are designed for use typically at distances of between 20 and 30 metres.

Less threatening demonstrators at close range are managed by batons and handheld pepper-spray (up to 1-2 metres).

But what of the most extreme dangers, as when a police officer perceives him/herself or another person to be at imminent risk of serious injury or death? Their instincts naturally turn to the right to defence of life, but their training also requires consideration of precaution, necessity, legality, proportionality and distinction – all in a time frame measured in seconds. These factors are combined to calibrate a response – which may amount to the use of lethal force.