(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong police said they fired shots into the air twice Saturday night to protect at-risk colleagues as protesters swarmed the city's streets in defiance of a ban.
The shots were fired minutes apart shortly after 9 p.m. Hong Kong time after police found themselves surrounded by demonstrators, Yolanda Yu, a police senior superintendent, said at a briefing early Sunday morning.
“There were serious threats to their lives,” Yu said. The gunshots were fired after repeated warnings to demonstrators, she added.
A shot was also fired into the air last weekend, the first since the rally began almost three months ago. It's the 13th straight weekend of political unrest in the Asian financial center as rallies over a now-suspended bill to allow extraditions to China widened into a push for greater democracy.
Hong Kong Masses Defy Police, Show China They're Ready to Fight
To contact the reporter on this story: Linus Chua in Los Angeles at lchua@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net, Virginia Van Natta, Ian Fisher
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
Essential Business Intelligence, Continuous LIVE TV, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
.jpg?im=FeatureCrop,algorithm=dnn,width=350)