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I was there. I was sitting next to him. He called us journos actors too
Last night, my crew & I were in North Point. We were looking for somewhere to eat. We came across a group of angry local residents who were against the protests. We began filming. They got really angry. One almost hit me but someone grabbed him before he could. 1/x
It was tense & ppl kept telling us to leave for our safety. All of a sudden, riot police rounded the corner, to the cheers of the pro-Beijing crowd. The police formed a line, w/ the pro-BJ crowd behind them. In front, there were only ~7 journos (incl. us) & a few bystanders. 2/x
We continued standing around, wondering what was going to happen. There were ZERO PROTESTERS in sight. The street was EMPTY. Suddenly, we realized the police were telling each other to put on gas masks. We frantically put on ours. There was no warning. 3/x
The police fired tear gas. I didn't even have time to put my gas mask on properly. There were probably a dozen people on the street that I could see. Mostly journos. The street had been quiet and empty. NO PROTESTERS. NO WARNING. 4/x
I was outraged. A man walked towards us, tear gassed, clearly in pain. He was in his hotel uniform. He was crying and terrified. He said he was just trying to find his hotel guests, that he was worried, that they were families with kids, that they came to HK just to have fun. 5/x
Us journos started helping him to wash his eyes out. Police passive-aggressively asked him if he needed an ambulance. It became a shouting match, as captured in the video by @alvinllum. 6/x
@alvinllum Emotional, he said he was worried about his guests' safety. "I'm a hotel worker, ah sir. I'm in uniform!" Later, he screamed: "What about my guests?!" Police screamed back: "You ask the protesters why HK has become like this!" 7/x
@alvinllum He showed me his badge and his worker ID. Police wouldn't let him through the police line to his hotel around the corner, so bystanders eventually walked him in the opposite direction. 8/x
@alvinllum The police asked me why we were filming them, and that we should be fair and film the protesters too. I tried asking them what they wanted us to film exactly, since there were NO PROTESTERS. They asked for my press ID, and after inspecting it, told me to wear it. 9/x
@alvinllum The police line started advancing. They forced us to walk down the street, telling us to move faster. A middle-aged resident started yelling at the police. When the yelling was over, another police line on the opposite end of the street started advancing towards us. 10/x
@alvinllum The 2nd police line, parallel to the 1st one, was advancing towards us, and started forcing us to go back the way we came from. It made no sense. They were forcing us back towards the other police line. We complained, asking them which in direction they wanted us to walk. 11/x
@alvinllum Suddenly, the riot police surrounded us. No longer pushing us in one direction, they encircled us 7 journos, shoving us with their riot shields until we were squashed together. 12/x
@alvinllum I don't know why they did that. Again, this was a quiet, empty street. They clearly didn't have a good reason to tell us to advance, since the second police line told us to go back the way we came from. I was furious. 13/x
@alvinllum The first police line let us through. There were still pro-Beijing people milling about. We didn't feel safe. Myself, my crew and two other journos decided to leave together. We walked one to the MTR station, and the other all the way home so that she wouldn't be alone. 14/x
@alvinllum As we walked her home, we noticed a group of men coming down the escalators of the Java Road Cooked Food Centre. "Journalists, go home!" they yelled. We were five women. As we hurried away, one yelled "打!" ("HIT!"). We were scared. They didn't come after us, thankfully. 15/x
@alvinllum Eventually, she said we had reached a safe part of North Point, and that she could walk the remaining 30m home on her own. We got in cabs ourselves. I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. 16/x
@alvinllum I got home heartbroken. The hotel worker's fear, his desperation, the way the police treated him. The way the police treated us journalists. The way we were scared just walking a colleague home in the city I've always bragged was one of the world's safest. 17/x
@alvinllum What's happened to Hong Kong? I'm exhausted. Good night. 18/18.
PS: The person who saved me from getting hit by the pro-Beijing person? She was arrested later. We filmed her arrest, despite the police’s best attempts to block us with their riot shields. I didn’t see any other arrests on that street that night.
The street was quiet enough that I even heard an order on an officer’s radio: “Don’t let them film”
