Dozens of riot police with masks, shotguns and shields appeared at the entrance of the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) on Wednesday as hundreds of students gathered to demand more information about the death of a 15-year-old student.
On Wednesday morning, the institute notified its students by email that all afternoon classes would be canceled due to safety reasons. It said it would arrange another meeting with students in an appropriate time.
The institute’s management, which promised to meet the students at 1:30pm, skipped the meeting. Masked people, mostly students, gathered at the campus and tried to call out the principal. At 2pm, they went to Principal’s Office on the eighth floor, but failed to meet anyone.
Some masked people broke into the office through a back door and vandalized the facilities and wrote graffiti on the walls. Someone set a fire in the office, but it was quickly put out.
At about 2:30pm, around 30 police officers arrived and stood by at an entrance to the campus. An officer was seen pointing his shotgun at the higher floor of the building. After half an hour, they left.
Most masked people left the campus by 4pm. Some residents in nearby estates said they were worried that the police would fire tear gas canisters in the campus and on the roadside.
Chan Yin-lam, whose naked body was found in the sea off Yau Tong on September 22, was last seen on the campus on September 19. Police said Chan committed suicide, but some of her friends suspected that Chan, who had participated in some anti-extradition protests in June and August, was killed by the police and dumped into the sea.
According to pictures uploaded by an unknown person to Telegram, Chan looked happy and took a lot of selfies with her new friends in HKDI on September 17 and 18.
On October 14 and 16, HKDI released some closed-circuit television video footage, which showed that Chan walking barefoot on the campus.
On Tuesday, hundreds of HKDI students gathered on the campus, demanding to see more videos. Some masked people broke a fire sprinkler.
Joseph Wong, a vice-principal at HKDI, talked to the crowd and promised to return at 1:30pm on Wednesday. However, he did not show up.
