A suicide attack took place at approximately 22:10 on 1 July 2021, in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. 50-year-old Leung Kin-fai approached a Police Tactical Unit police officer from behind and stabbed him, injuring the officer's scapula and piercing his lung, before Leung committed suicide by stabbing his own heart. Leung was immediately subdued by surrounding police officers, who arrested him and sent him to a hospital. He died at 23:20.
The stabbed police officer underwent seven hours of surgery in the emergency room while his family was told they needed to prepare themselves for the worst. The constable survived and learned two days after the attack, that his attacker had already committed suicide. In the aftermath, he said he will never forgive someone who believe they can "evade responsibility" by committing suicide and stated that, "this conveys a very wrong message to society, that one can conclude matters by ending one's own life after doing bad things. Violence cannot solve a problem. Violence is never a solution. These are my words to him."
The attack occurred on the anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong in 1997a public holiday in Hong Kong. Suspected motives of the perpetrator include dissatisfaction with the Hong Kong police, whom he accused of "sheltering criminals", and opposition to the implementation of the Hong Kong national security law and its ramifications on the course of democratic development in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government characterised the attack as an act of terrorism.
Some Hong Kong netizens called Leung a "martyr" and "brave". Some citizens went to the attack site to lay flowers and bow. Police strongly condemned the mourning and while it did not declare the laying of flowers to mourn the attacker to be illegal, it did not recommend "these so-called mourning rituals" and stated that encouraging such memorials of Leung was "no different from supporting terrorism". It said that some parents had brought young children to mourn, and had intended to "beautify, romanticize, heroize and even rationalize the murderer's cold-blooded act of attempting to kill."
Incident
Approximately at 22:10, Leung Kin-fai, a 50-year-old man who was dressed in black and wearing a backpack suddenly raised a knife and stabbed a 28-year-old Police Tactical Unit police officer's back from behind outside Causeway Bay Sogo, causing the officer to fall on the ground. The suspect inserted the knife to his own chest shortly after. His heart position was bleeding. Immediately, he was subdued to ground by five to six police officers. He died at 23:20 after being sent to Ruttonjee Hospital for rescue. According to reporters and eyewitnesses on site, the police officer bled heavily after being stabbed. There was also a lot of blood near the subdued assailant. The attack was filmed and live-streamed by a reporter from Secret China, a Chinese-language media outlet from the United States.
The police said the injured police officer was from East Kowloon Police Tactical Unit. His scapula was injured and his lung was pierced. After an emergency operation at Queen Mary Hospital, his condition improved from critical to serious the next morning. The police classified the incident as an attempted murder and suicide.
After the officer fell on the ground, three nearby police officers drew their guns. At the same time, a large number of officers arrived at the scene and sealed off East Point Road, driving away citizens and reporters. The new Commissioner of Police Raymond Siu came to the scene to be briefed about the incident. Police officers collected evidence on site afterwards and found a fruit knife and a sabre. At approximately 23:20, police officers stopped and searched a woman near the scene of the assault and found a utility knife on her body. She was shackled and taken to a police car. Later, a man was also taken on the police car with his head covered by black cloth.
Investigation
The suspect Leung Kin-fai had worked as director of purchasing department for Vitasoy International since 2016, and as an information officer for Apple Daily in 2008. He was single, living with his parents in a Tenement building in San Po Kong, and without criminal record. The police found a large number of Apple Daily newspaper clippings, social movement propaganda leaflets, books, notes, and a USB memory card belonging to the deceased, which contained suicide notes declaring his hatred of police and his intention to kill an officer on July 1 which marked the 24th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty, and explaining the settling of his financial affairs. The suicide note mentioned the police "sheltering criminals", their "atrocities", and that they could not be checked and balanced under the system. He also thought that there was no longer freedom after the implementation of the Hong Kong national security law. Security Secretary Chris Tang said on 2 July that materials found on Leung's computer had shown that he had been "radicalised", but gave no further details.
On 4 July, police announced that the attack was being investigated by its national security department. Police chief Raymond Siu said the department was investigating whether other parties were behind the attack. On 6 July, Steve Li, Senior Superintendent of the Police National Security Department, said that police had found a large amount of newspapers, which he did not name, which were "inciting hate and fake news".
Background and media analyses The attack occurred on the date of the 24th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (HKSAR), considered a sensitive date in the city.
In their first two decades, the 1 July marches that referenced the establishment of the HKSAR were peaceful mass protests of the pro-democracy movement and civic groups. The 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests saw public mistrust in police officers strongly increasing, with many demonstrators seeing them as agents of the government. The national security law, which the central government pushed through during a lull in the protests caused by the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, changed the climate in the city fundamentally. At illegal protests on 1 July 2020, around 370 arrests were made, and after another illegal protest in September with around 300 arrests, no further large protests took place. Thousands left the city to take up offers of safe harbour by Western democracies.
On 1 July 2021, the day of the stabbing, protests were again banned, ostensibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and this time suppressed through a large citywide deployment of police, including water cannon trucks and armoured vehicles, as well as the stopping and searching of passers-by. At least 20 arrests were made. At the time of the stabbing, the police had enclosed the nearby Victoria Park, which had normally been the starting point of the marches.
The polarized climate in the city reflected itself in the scarcity of milder or more nuanced statements about the attack, according to a July 2021 New York Times article. While the government used the incident, as well as news of a bomb plot that was foiled days later, as supporting its narrative that the city was under threat of random acts of violence, some in the city were skeptical about these claims; for many, the separation of power between the government and the police had become blurred.
The New York Times noted that the event, along with the foiled bomb plot several days later, was reopening an uncomfortable debate within the pro-democracy movement about whether it condoned or even supported violencea question that had already dogged the protests in 2019.
Reactions
Citizens
After the stabbing, some netizens praised Leung, calling him a "martyr" and "the brave". In a statement on 2 July which made reference to these online comments, the Hong Kong police warned the public against any "attempt to romanticize or glorify the despicable act with seditious intent to incite hatred in society." Several arrests for online comments were made subsequently (see derived arrests).
Over the following week, and in spite of a warning by Hong Kong police that encouraging such memorials was tantamount to supporting terrorism, citizens brought flowers to the site to mourn the knifeman. Some were accompanied by young children.
2 July Outside Causeway Bay Sogothe site of the attack and at nearby doorways and the handrail of a nearby subway station's entrance, citizens laid flowers to mourn the death. There were also people who offered Free Hugs in hope to encourage one another. However, they were soon intercepted by police officers. From noon onwards, the police started to stop and search all citizens holding flowers who were close to Sogo. Police issued littering tickets to some citizens laying white flowers and said the act of laying flowers was suspected of inciting others. Images published by local media showed white flowers (chrysanthemums according to one source) that had been placed by mourners at the site being dumped into trash cans by plainclothes police officers. Police officers hindered a reporter from filming the event. The police surrounded and investigated a young woman as she was taking pictures of a girl holding flowers on East Point Road. She was charged for violating the four-person gathering restriction order. At night, after the police unblocked the cordon, a man tried to place a bouquet but was immediately pulled into the cordon and taken away.
3 July Citizens continued to come to the site of the attack, holding white flowers. At least four police cars were parked outside Sogo as a number of police officers continuously stood guard. They intercepted and searched several citizens dressing in black. Police warned citizens against violating the four-person gathering restriction order and discarding objects in public places. The mourners included League of Social Democrats member Dickson Chau, who said that Hong Kong was facing unprecedented suppression, and that the strictness that police had shown the day before in preventing commemorations had even exceeded that before planned commemorations of the 12 June 2019 Hong Kong protest. A secondary school student said he had been stopped and checked four times in a day, and being interrogated by the police, "Has someone died in your family?", "Are you also going to hold a bunch of flowers when going to school?". He was let go after explaining, but was stopped and checked again at the entrance of Sogo. Police were shadowing and taking photos of citizens as they were interviewed by Stand News, saying that this was to see if there was any inflammatory speech. In the evening, there were still citizens showing up to mourn.
7 July