Police swoop as Hong Kong protests shift tactics

(13 Oct 2019) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4234573 Black-clad protesters in Hong Kong changed tactics and wreaked havoc by popping up in small groups in multiple locations across the city Sunday, pursued by but also often eluding police who made scores of muscular arrests. The guerrilla-like tactics sought to maximize the disruption and visibility of protests at a time when anti-government demonstrations have, as a whole, been showing signs of flagging as they stretch into a fifth month. Pressure from a government ban on the face masks worn by many protesters and extreme violence earlier this month appear to have cooled the ardor of some demonstrators and whittled down protest numbers. Online calls for gatherings to start at 2 p.m. in dozens of malls, parks, sports grounds and other locations triggered an afternoon of mayhem and marked a shift from earlier more concentrated rallies in fewer spots. Police adapted, too, fanning out in multiple locations and quickly making arrests. Police pinned detainees to the floor and hauled them away. But as police hared after suspects in one area, protesters sprang up in others like the "Whac-A-Mole" arcade game, overwhelming the spread-out policing effort. On the closed metal shutters of a subway station, a protester dressed head-to-toe in black sprayed, "When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes our duty." Before dawn Sunday, protesters also clambered up a peak and erected a 4-meter- (13-foot-) tall white statue of a demonstrator in a gas mask, dubbed "The Lady Liberty of Hong Kong," that gazed over the restive city. The protests gripping the international business hub began in response to a now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be sent for trial in Communist Party-controlled courts in mainland China. The movement then ballooned to encompass broader clamors for universal suffrage, an independent inquiry of the policing methods used against protesters and other demands. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...