Neutralising tear gas
When police fired tear gas on protesters at the beginning of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement protests of 2014, it caused widespread outrage across the Hong Kong community and helped spark the 79-day occupation of the city. Fast-forward five years, and the deployment of tear gas on Hong Kong’s streets has become all-too commonplace. Indeed, over the past weekend alone tear gas was fired by police in dense, residential neighbourhoods on both Saturday and Sunday, and on Sunday evening almost constantly over a period of some four hours. Part of the reason for the increased amounts of tear gas is that protesters have learned how to neutralise it.
Small mobile teams of “firefighters” wait at the rear of the front lines equipped with traffic cones. When a tear gas shell lands among the crowd, they race in to cover the shell with the traffic cone, creating a “chimney” that contains and funnels the smoke away. Another team member then moves in to pour water into the cone to douse the shell, putting it out. When a traffic cone is not available, water or wet towels are used to smother the tear gas shells, or a nimble protester wearing heat-proof gloves will snatch up the shell and throw it, either back at police or to the side of the crowd out of harm’s way.