PART III THE DISTURBANCES
41
no which was directed to move south down Nathan Road. On arrival, the Marine of company was directed to move north to deal with disorders which were developing
in that area.
ed
at
eir
ot
he
ad
ds
le
of
le
152. Mr. DUNNING took steps to disengage his two platoons from their task at the western side of the Nathan Road/Gascoigne Road junction and, re-joined by the third platoon, the company made a sweep southward along Nathan Road, of which they were able to clear of crowds although these slipped into side streets and continued to throw stones and, on occasions, followed the company as it moved south. It was probably this company that was also followed by the reporter mentioned in para. 153. By this time, much damage had been done to ey traffic lights and traffic signs and there was a great deal of debris all over the se road. There was a number of stationary vehicles north of Jordan Road though Nathan Road itself was now reasonably clear at the junction. The company pushed on south towards the junction of Austin Road with crowds tending to build up in front of it; pushing over traffic pagodas and piling up temporary bus railings, road repair boards, diversion signs etc. across the road to form obstructions. Banners were seen but at too great a distance to decipher the characters on them. The crowds kept retreating southwards ahead of the company but, breaking off, for a moment, from the movements of the police, we have had in the J.L.O.'s statement an account of how this area appeared from the other side. In his written statement, he tells us how at about 11.15 p.m. he moved north again behind a large procession from the Tsim Sha Tsui area. This appears to have been the crowd of which a part is shown in Plate 12. He said that he saw LO Kei, standing on a private car, addressing this crowd. Shortly afterwards, there was general rioting in the area; parking meters, 'keep left' signs and other traffic signs were being smashed. Evidence of this was also given in Court proceedings against LO Kei. He
d
0
d
it
n
1,
S
1
3
t
}
saw a 14 year old boy in front of him deliberately and in an apparent frenzy } smash two parking meters and a ‘keep left' sign. The boy appeared to be very wild and angry. He was arrested and was immediately very sorry for what he had done ; and in tears requested to be released. In fact he appeared to have some difficulty in remembering what he had done and the J.L.O. formed the impression that his behaviour was like that of a man who had recently thrown a fit. Other officers of the J.L.O. had arrested a 21 year old boy, for damaging motor-cycles parked outside the Miramar Hotel and attempting to set them alight. Some of the crowd moved towards the police officers shouting for the release of these prisoners. The police officers withdrew to the Miramar Coffee House where the grill doors prevented the crowd from attacking them. When the crowd realized this, they quickly returned to Nathan Road to continue their general destruction of anything at hand in the streets, but they appeared to find humour in this; laughing and joking as they smashed the signs. About 15 minutes later, a riot company— almost certainly Mr. DUNNING's Headquarter Company-approached from the north. The crowd jeered and threw stones and then dispersed into the side streets