In the early hours of 4 November 2019, Chow Tsz-lok, a 22-year-old student of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology fell from the third floor inside a car park in Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong, in the context of anti-government protests in the territory. Chow, who was clad in black clothing that had become an unofficial uniform for protesters, had been wandering alone inside the building in the moments preceding the fall. The car park was close to an area of confrontation between protesters and police.
Chow sustained multiple injuries, including a severe brain injury as a result of his fall. He died due to a cardiac arrest four days later. The death stirred great emotions as many blamed the police and the government, while the police strenuously denied responsibility for his death. The government failed to conduct an independent investigation, and this triggered an escalation of violence of the ongoing protests.
The Coroner's inquest found no evidence to suggest that Chow had taken part in the protest at the time. As the jury was unable to make a determination about the cause of death, the coroner pronounced an open verdict.
Incident
Continuing and accumulated grievances against police brutality since the start of the anti-ELAB protests led to doxing of police officers and calls for revenge. Private details of a police officer's wedding in Tseung Kwan O on 3 November 2019 were thus leaked, and calls were made to crash it. Around 16:00 on that day, the police dispersed protesters who were disrupting the wedding held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Riot police arrived near the hotel about two hours later. Then, around 00:20 on 4 November, around 100 protesters gathered at the junction of Tong Ming and Tong Chun streets, with some creating roadblocks.
Early on 4 November, a 22-year-old second-year computer science undergraduate student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Chow Tsz-Lok, sustained severe head injuries due to a fall from the third to the second storey of the Sheung Tak car park in Tseung Kwan O, near an area of confrontation between protesters and police. According to his father, Chow, also known as Alex Chow, had left their flat at around 23:40 on 3 November 2019, wearing a black top, deep-grey shorts, black running shoes, a black cap, and a dark backpack. Chow did not disclose to his family where he was going.
CCTV footage showed that Chow was wandering alone, backwards and forwards between the inside the car park and on a connecting footbridge from 0:26 until 01:02 – the last moment he was captured on camera. The fall itself was not captured in the footage due to the operational camera rotations and parked vehicles blocking the view.
The police said that they fired tear gas in the area near the car park from 00:41 to 00:57. As reported in Time magazine, it was initially unclear whether or not the tear gas, fired near the car park where protesters and officers clashed, had played a role in Chow's fall. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said that television footage showed police had fired tear gas at the building in which Chow fell "minutes earlier". Tear gas was reported at the junction of Tong Ming Street and Tong Chun Street, to the western side of the car park, on the opposite side of the building and about 120 metres (parallel to the building) to 160 metres (from the junction) away from the spot where Chow fell. Security footage released by the building owner Link REIT showed that there was no police presence nor significant amounts of tear gas inside the car park in the moments before Chow fell.
The police stated that officers conducted a dispersal operation in the building late Sunday, from 23:06 until 23:20, before Chow had arrived there. A second operation, to disperse protesters who had allegedly been throwing objects at officers on the street from above, took place at 01:05 after Chow had been found unconscious. Police denied that there were any police officers inside the building when Chow was walking around there, nor did they chase after him before he fell. The police concluded their dispersal operation in the car park at 01:25 and in the nearby area around the Sheung Tak car park at 01:45.
At 01:05, police were informed by a civilian that a person had fallen. Firefighters attending to the injured requested an ambulance at 01:11. At 01:15, as seen in CCTV footage, over 20 police officers arrived at the spot where Chow had fallen and left about a minute later. Suzette Foo, the Senior Superintendent (Operations) of Kowloon East, said that their officers learned about Chow's injuries when they reached the second floor as they swept the building from the ground floor. She said that the firefighters told the police that they had the situation under control and did not require their presence. The police then dispersed the people at the scene with weapons, and left the first-aiders alone to provide care.
Emergency services
The Hong Kong Fire Services Department said ambulance A344 from the Po Lam district received an emergency call from firefighters and was redirected at 01:11 to the second floor of the Sheung Tak car park to attend to an urgent case. The ambulance was obstructed by other vehicles including double-decker buses and private cars at the junction of Po Shun Road at Tong Ming Street. At 01:20, finding their way blocked by private cars and fire engines near the Kwong Ying House of the Kwong Ming Court, the ambulance personnel abandoned their vehicle and walked to the scene with their equipment, arriving at their destination at 01:30. The ambulance left with Chow at 01:41 and arrived at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital at 01:59.
Leung Kwok-lai, the Fire Services Department Assistant Chief Ambulance Officer (Kowloon East), said that the ambulance assigned to Chow did not come in contact with any police on duty. He also stated that there were five ambulances deployed for various incidents in the area around that time: ambulance A344 assigned to Chow, two other ambulances handling other cases, while the remaining two ambulances did not handle any patients.
The Fire Services Department said that it took 19 minutes for paramedics to arrive at the scene due to traffic congestion near the car park, seven minutes more than the 12-minute service pledge for emergencies. The police and protesters each blamed the other side for blocking the ambulance from reaching Chow; police vehemently denied responsibility. In an email to HKUST staff and students pledging to take up the matter with police and demand clarification, HKUST president Wei Shyy said: "We saw the footage of ambulances being blocked by police cars and the paramedics walking to the scene, causing a delay of 20 minutes in the rescue operation of our student." However, it was ascertained that the disseminated footage actually depicted ambulance A346, assigned to a person with shortness of breath and back pain.
Chow remained in a critical condition with severe brain injury at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital until his death from cardiac arrest at 08:09 on 8 November 2019. The hospital referred the case to the Coroner's Court.
Coroner's Court
The Coroner's Court held a pre-inquest review on 16 September 2020. The Coroner's Court inquest began on 16 November 2020 and lasted for over a month. For the inquest, 48 witness testimonies and 142 pieces of evidence had been submitted to the court and used for deliberation by the jury.
Layout of the car park
The court heard that the second floor had four pavements separated by short concrete walls from the parking spaces, but that the third floor had a different layout as the walls were taller and there was no pavement behind the walls. Chow Tak-ming, the father, showed the route that they usually used inside the building on a model. He remarked that Chow fell in a location that was seldom used by their family.
Time of the fall
The police commandeered video footage from over 30 cameras from the building owner Link REIT, and then asserted that videos showed police entering the car park after the estimated time frame of Chow's fall, thus ruling out that Chow had been pushed by police officers. However, the cause for the fall could not be determined from the footage.
Detective Senior Constable Ngai Kwun-kit, who was tasked with reviewing security footage, said that the fall might have occurred at 01:01:47 due to an abnormal change in the light around the area where Chow was found. He posited that a sudden flash, seen in the footage, was caused by light reflected from Chow as he fell down, but Magistrate Ko Wai-hung remarked that it was too early to confirm whether the flash could indicate the exact timing of Chow's fall. Ngai stated that Chow was alone and not followed by anyone in the footage.
Later, newly unearthed footage from a security camera installed at the Kwong Ming Court, a residential complex near the car park, showed a shadow identified as belonging to Chow as it descended. The moment was timestamped at 00:51:37 in the video, but Ko remarked that this was not the real time. He added that forensic experts had to ascertain the precise time and landing point of the fall based on the footage. Subsequent forensic examination determined the time of the fall as 01:01:48 based on the new footage, corroborating the conclusion of the investigators into the footage at the car park. Ko later stated that he indeed believes that the flash captured in the footage indicated the moment when Chow fell and that the time of the footage matched the other evidence.
Instant messages
Chow made posts in online group chats on Telegram saying that he was merely at the car park to watch the protest. His final message was "[I] also went down to give something to others." Chow's father said that his last exchange with his son was via WhatsApp at 00:46 to tell his son that police had fired tear gas, to which Chow replied two minutes later to tell his father to close the windows.
Protesters and police
The Coroner's Court heard that protesters assembled near the Sheung Tak Estate car park and barricaded roads overnight between 3 and 4 November 2019, following online calls to gather outside a nearby hotel where a police officer was holding a wedding banquet.
Senior Inspector Wong Ka-lun said he and his team were tasked with conducting a sweep inside the car park, because black-clad protesters were hurling glass bottles and traffic cones at officers. The barrister representing Chow's family pressed the inspector that he should have realised the need to remove obstacles on the road when he found out that Chow had been injured to facilitate his rapid transfer to the hospital quickly. Wong responded that he judged that it was a higher priority to clear the threat posed by violent protesters so that the paramedics could continue treating the injured person, failing which firefighters and paramedics could have been assaulted. He said his team members had already enquired what had happened and whether rescuers needed help, but were informed their help was not needed. He said that they did not obstruct or harass firefighters or paramedics or get in touch with the injured person during the sweep. Senior Inspector Kwok Chun-hei, who led the other police team, said that they had not been informed of Chow's fall whilst dispersing protesters outside the car park. Both police Wong and Kwok stated that no officers had come in contact with Chow or had given chase to anybody during the incident.
Station Sergeant Lam Wah-ping, who led the police reinforcement, said that he and about 30 colleagues went to offer emergency support to two other teams of officers during the protest in Tseung Kwan O, but had not entered the car park or any other building. He stated that the East Kowloon District police command post had not received information about the incident involving Chow. He said that officers passed by the Sheung Tak Estate car park's ground entrance and reached the T-junction, about 80 metres north of the junction between Tong Ming Street and Tong Chun Street, at 00:58, and that protesters had reoccupied the roads and were throwing objects at officers by the time police were about to retreat at 01:27.
Fire Services Department
Lai Wai-kit, a firefighter who administered first aid to Chow, revealed that anti-government protesters had unintentionally delayed their arrival by blocking a road leading to Chow's location. News footage played in court showed that two fire engines could not reach the car park due to a roadblock at the junction of Tong Ming Street and Tong Chun Street. Lai declared that his fire engine had to make a U-turn because the road to the car park was obstructed with various objects. A large number of protesters had gathered at that position, but that there had been unintentional obstruction to firefighters.