Police watchdog has reviewed 20 per cent of Occupy complaints - but has nearly 2,000 still to go
The police watchdog had received 2,427 complaints relating to the Occupy protests as of Wednesday - of which 159 have been classified as "reportable" and referred to the Independent Police Complaints Council.
The force's Complaints Against Police Office (Capo) has so far reviewed 517 complaints in total with a further 339 classified as "notifiable" - of which only the summaries will be submitted to IPCC for examination to ensure correct classification - and 19 as "miscellaneous".
Under a two-tier system for monitoring police, the IPCC has no power to initiate its own investigations and is limited to reviewing the results of Capo's work.
Of the 159 cases it has received, the IPCC has finished reviewing 47. Among them, complainants in 21 cases withdrew, while 22 cases were considered "not pursuable" - mostly because the complainants were "unreachable" - said the IPCC's deputy secretary-general Daniel Mui Tat-ming. The other four have been mutually resolved.
Five incidents accounted for 40 per cent of all complainants, many of them not necessarily from parties directly involved, such as the alleged beating of Civic Party member Ken Tsang Kin-chiu by seven policemen, who are now the subjects of a criminal investigation.
Complaints from members of the public against what they have seen in the media will not be classified as "reportable", so only summaries will go to the IPCC.
Asked if the IPCC had the resources to handle so many complaints, Mui said: "Public expectation is quite high; we have four of our six teams dealing with it."
Mui added the IPCC s recruiting to add to the 40 officers currently dedicated to the task.
The 16 complaints against police officers in 2011, during then vice-premier Li Keqiang's visit to Hong Kong, was the previous highest number the IPCC had considered over a single incident and it took over a year for it to finish studying them.
Capo is obliged to explain to the IPCC if it fails to submit its findings on Occupy-related complaints within six months, Mui said, which means by mid-year. It usually takes the IPCC three months to handle a complaint submitted by Capo.
