Illegal gambler falls to death trying to escape Hong Kong police raid
Second man found injured but alive after the men tried to escape raid through a window
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 13 September, 2015, 2:37am
UPDATED : Sunday, 13 September, 2015, 2:37am
Shirley Zhao
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Workers remove a body from the alleyway. Photo: SMP Pictures
A police raid on illegal betting in a Mong Kok flat has ended in death after two men - one dead and the other injured - were found lying in an alleyway at the back of the block.
Police believe the men were gamblers who fell from a window in the first-floor flat on Reclamation Street while trying to flee from officers who conducted the raid from 10.45pm on Friday to 2.30am yesterday.
The men were not discovered until about 9am, when they were found by a staff member of a hardware store that is also in the building.
A 44-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene, said Superintendent Lam Shu-wing of the Kowloon West regional crime unit. He added that the man had an injury to the back of his head and his right ankle was broken.
The other man, 50, was found on a canopy hanging along the alley. He was conscious when found and had a broken right hand, shattered pelvis and punctured lungs. The injuries were not life-threatening, Lam said.
"He revealed to police that he was injured after opening the window to escape from officers," the superintendent said.
Officers from the Kowloon West regional anti-triad unit were targeting a triad-controlled gambling den operating in the flat, Lam said.
Eleven men and four women aged 27 to 59 were arrested for gambling illegally or running a betting venue. Officers also confiscated four slot machines and two machetes.
Lam said initial investigation showed the two men were playing on the slot machines.
Officers were monitoring the back alley during the raid but did not notice anything, he said.
The Mong Kok raid was part of an anti-illegal-gambling operation codenamed Thunderbolt 15 that also targeted three other flats. Officers arrested a man, 46, and a woman, 39, at Apliu Street in Sham Shui Po; six people aged 23 to 57 at Cooke Street in Hung Hom; and two men aged 29 and 37 at Tung Lok Street in Yuen Long.
At these three flats, they also confiscated 19 slot machines, a small amount of a suspected drug and a katana - a long, single-edged sword used by Japanese samurai.
In addition, tens of thousands of dollars in cash were seized in the four gambling dens.
