From: gu_jc3@stu.ust.hk (GU)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.hongkong
Subject: HK News Clippings - 07 JAN 93
Date: 7 Jan 1993 01:26:47 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

AK-47 gang kills woman pedestrian in Nathan Road

Hostages taken, cars hijacked in wild chase

By JIMMY LEUN, SCMP

AN innocent woman pedestrian was shot dead and a policeman wounded in
Nathan Road by a gang of robbers using AK-47 rifles yesterday, renewing
calls for the implementation of the death penalty.

   One of the three men involved in the second violent jewellery shop
raid in two days was shot dead by police during a chase along some of
West Kowloon's busiest roads.

   The gang fired more than 30 shots mostly from the AK-47s, with
officers returning 17 shots during several encounters that saw chaos
from Mongkok to Hunghom as bystanders dived for cover and motorists
abandoned their vehicles amid the hail of bullets.

   The dead man, shot twice in the back and twice in the legs, was left
behind in a hijacked private car when his accompliccs grabbed another
car and disappcared.

   They also abandoned two China-made AK-47 rifles, known as Model 56
on the mainland, and a Russian-made 9 mm Makarov pisto.

   Detectives studying previous raids involving AK-47s last night did
not rule out the possiblity that the raid was masterminded by Yip Kai
foon - Hongkong's most wanted criminal.

   Yip is belicvcd to have rccruitcd gangs who pulled off at Ieast two
major robberies between June 1991 and last March.

   More than 100 rounds of AK-47, and six rounds of Makarov, ammunition
were found in a string of getaway Cars.

   There was no sign of the 1,000 taels of gold ornaments (worth about
$3.3 million) snatched from the Tse Sui Luen Company in Nathan Road.

   Detectives are comparing the raid with Tuesday's robberv at the Chow
Tai Fook gold shop in Causeway Bay where a gang with pistols and a
grenade got away with $6 million worth of jewellery.

   Mongkok police district commander, Chief Supcrintendent Chris Glover,
described the men involved in yesterdays holdup as "cold- blooded and
ruthless", spraying a burst of shots from the AK-47s indiscriminately in
one of the territory's busiest tourist shopping areas.

   An amateur video broadcast on television showed one of the men coolly
 brandislling his AK-47 as he stood guard outside the shop and ushering
 his accomplices into a taxi.

   Leather goods shop owner, Mr Tang Siu-keung, 42, said the gunman kept
looking towards Dundas Street apparently expecting police from that
direetion, but occasionally glaneed behind him.

   "I called police immediately after hearing a burst of shots believed
to have been fired towards Dundas Strect's junction with Nathan Road,"
he said.

   "When I looked up, I saw a woman lyin in a pool of blood with
serious head injuries at the road junction."

   Miss Fung Wai-lin, 38, was certified dead at Kwong Wah Hospital at 2.34 pm.

   Her taxi driver husband, Mr Law Chung-wai, 40, said at the hospital
his wife was a nurse at the Tung Wah Group of Hospital's Pao Sui Loong
Convalescent Home in Tai Po. He said they had been married for four
years and had no children.

   Police Tactical Unit' Constable Lee Kin-ming, 28, was shot in the
left leg as he lay on the footpath on the opposite side of the road
junction.

   He was in fair conditio last night.

   A jewellery shop employee, Miss Kwok Kwai-ying, 36, suffered shoek
during the incident and was treated and diseharged from Kwong Wah
Hospital.

   Poliee Commissioner Mr Li Kwan-ha visited Mr Lee later in the
afternoon but would not eomment on the ineident.

   The Governor, Mr Chris Patten, condemned the violence and vowed
that the police would fight crime with every means in their power.

   Some police urged legislators, to bring back the death penalty for
such violent crimes.

   The three men had hailed a taxi in Portland Street at about noon and
told the driver to circle round the area twice.

   One of the men suddenly threatened the driver with a pistol and told
him to go to the Tse Sui Luen Jewellery Company at 580 Nathan Road.

   The driver was ordered to park outside the shop and wait. He was told
he would be shot if he tried to escape.

   The three put on balaclavas and got out, leaving the front door of
the taxi open.

   One man with an AK-47 took his position on the footpath as the other
two went into the shop at 12.20 pm.

   One of them fired a warning shot at the ceiling as they entered the
shop and the other threatened staff members and about 20 customers.

   The gunman in the street fired about eight shots intermittently from
his AK-47.

   As the gang came out of the shop and moved back to the taxi, five
more shots were fired, hitting Ms Fung and Mr Lee.

   A detective sergeant managed to fire only once because of the
pedestrians in the busy street and other officers were not close enough
to attempt to fire safely.

   The second man with an AK-47 dragged a woman employee out of the shop
with him, but freed her as the gang jumped into the taxi.

   They dropped a tennis racquet bag containing 20 live AK-47 rounds in
the gutter.

   The robbers fired shots along Nathan Road near Dundas and Pitt
streets before their taxi turned into Waterloo Road, chased by a police
emergency unit car.

   Another emergency unit car in Shek Kip Mei raced to Kowloon Tong.
Officers wearing bullet-proof vests and with service revolvers drawn
blocked Waterloo Road near Essex Crescent.

   The fleeing taxi was stuck in a traffic jam after coming down the
Princess Margaret Road flyover from Pui Ching Road.

   The taxi bumped into an RTHK vehicle after it was hit by a lorry from
behind.

   The trio jumped out of the taxi and were immediately met by police
manning the road block.

   The gang fired more than 20 shots with police returning 16,
including six shots from Remington shotguns.

   Eight vehicles that either skidded to a stop or were abandoned by
their drivers as the shots rang out were hit.

   Only one robber, aged between 20 and 30, was hit.

   The thieves carried the man to a Toyota Crown stopped by the incident
and forced the driver to make a U-turn towards the Kowloon entrance of
the Cross Harbour Tunnel.

   The hijacked car was seen travelling along Fat Kwong Street in Ho Man
Tin and arrived at Ma Tau Wai Road in Hunghom where the two robbers
abandoned the car leaving be- hind their sho; accomplice.

   They hijacked another taxi and headed towards Chun Seen Mei Chuen in
Ma Tau Wai, where they jumped out and disap- peared.

   The taxi driver discovered the second AK-47 rifle in his car after
the two men had gone. He drove to Kowloon City police station to alert
officers.