The daughters of a taxi driver who died after being put in a headlock during an arrest in 2012 have called on Hong Kong authorities to bring the police officer involved to justice after an inquest concluded that he was killed unlawfully.
Chan died from complications arising from a cervical vertebra dislocation in December 2012, a month after Constable Lam Wai-wing pulled him into a police vehicle while wrapping his arm around the man’s neck. The officer maintained that he had immediately released his arm the moment it came into contact with the driver’s neck.
The new jury on Thursday reached the same conclusion, but by a wider margin of 4-1, after closed-door deliberations began the previous day.
Jurors found that Chan died of bronchopneumonia he had contracted as a complication of the neck injury inflicted by police.
“This incident shows that police misconduct can threaten the lives of arrested people,” the jury said.