The incident started when an elderly man, who was wearing t-shirts and shorts and with no apparent protective gear, was seen being forced to leave the area. At that time he was standing about ten meters away from the Admiralty MTR C2 exit. After some altercation, the elderly man moved back towards the MTR exit. The police attempted to further force the remaining individuals into the MTR station. The people standing outside the MTR station tried to explain that since the station was fully packed, they could not go inside until later when at least part of the crowd dispersed. At that time, numerous people fled into the Admiralty station via its various exits due to the police firing tear gas in the vicinity. The station at that time was packed and the people inside the station had to line up to enter the MTR gates and reach the platforms.
A policeman carrying pepper spray suddenly ran over to the protesters that were standing outside the MTR station and started pepper spraying the people. Immediately following, several other policeman forward to the protesters and yelled at the protesters for them to leave and repeatedly struck their shields with their batons. The protesters moved a couple of steps downward while reiterating that the station is already packed and they couldn't move inside. Then the policeman who was wearing a white uniform ( of a higher rank than the officer in the blue uniform), suddenly moved forward again and grabbed a protester. At that time none of the protesters, showed any signs of being a threat to anyone. Then they even grabbed onto a female protester who was standing at the top of a staircase and attempted to drag her away (approx. 50 steps high) causing her to fall to her feet. Other male protesters immediately ran back up the stairs to help the female protester. At this time, the protesters all when to the middle landing of the long staircase and continued to tell the police from afar that they could not possibly get to the concourse level of the MTR station because it was packed full of people and that they needed time. The police only shouted, "Please disperse!" However, they did not give any instructions or directions as to where the protesters who were stuck on the staircase landing could disperse to. The MTR station is considered a public area where anyone can be at. The staircase that the protesters were at are already within the MTR station premise. No prior warnings were issued to the protesters before using pepper spray.
Places in the video where police can be seen using pepper spray:
From about 1:23 to 1:33, the police continuously pepper sprayed people who were standing with their backs towards the bottom of the C2 MTR exit staircase.
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