Police Mistrust Continues

RTHK has found four police officers wearing the same call signs

It seems the Hong Kong Police doesn't care to regain the public's trust anymore.

The latest case in point? For over six months the police have not worn their individual ID numbers while managing the protests.

Police had said their uniform had no space for ID numbers

The complaints resulted in Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu telling the Legislative Council earlier this month that the police officers wore call signs on their left chest that could be used to identify individual officers.

However, RTHK has found at least four officers wearing the same operational call sign on their uniforms during protests in Tsim Sha Tsui on Christmas Eve. Three male officers and one female officer had blue tags on their chests identifying them as YT T3 (TF).

Lee had told lawmakers that these operational call signs are just as effective as unique identification numbers, and strike a balance between ensuring the public can identify the individual officers, while protecting the officers from doxxing, or having their personal details shared online.

During protests on December 24, four officers had the same ID

Edwin Cheng, a former member of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), told RTHK that officers sharing the same number is obviously wrong.

The police's response to RTHK's findings is that the use of call signs does not undermine the public's demand to be able to identify officers.

But if more than one officer is wearing the same call sign, obviously this is a ploy to prevent the public from being able to report on individual officers, as in this case three of them can deny being at a certain place at a certain time.

This is just as ridiculous as when in mid-June, the police said there was no room on the riot police's uniform to have their ID numbers on there.

On Christmas Eve police arrested many protesters in malls

Did the police think they could get away with this latest ploy of having multiple officers having the same call sign?

How are we ever supposed to mend the rift between the police and protesters when the former refuse to be honest with how they do their work?