Tsui Po-ko

Tsui Po-ko
PC Tsui Po-ko
Born	17 May 1970 Shaowu, Fujian, China
Died	17 March 2006(2006-03-17) (aged 35) Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Occupation	Police constable
Criminal charge	Robbery, murder
Criminal status	Deceased (killed during ambush on fellow officer)
Spouse(s)	Lee Po-ling
Children	1 daughter

Tsui Po-ko (Chinese: 徐步高) (17 May 1970 – 17 March 2006) was a police constable in the Hong Kong Police Force who was implicated in a number of crimes, including bank robbery and murder.

He died when he and another police constable shot each other in a gun battle in a Tsim Sha Tsui subway. The inquest into the events leading up to his death aroused great interest in Hong Kong, as it unravelled a string of intriguing events, and revealed the secret life of a policeman with a delusional state of mind.^[1]

On 25 April 2007, the five-person jury in the Coroner's court unanimously decided that Tsui was responsible for injuring one and killing two fellow police officers and a bank security guard, on three separate occasions. The jury returned a verdict that he had been "lawfully killed" by fellow officer Tsang Kwok-hang in a shootout.^[2] The inquest lasted 36 days, one of the longest ever inquests in Hong Kong.

Assistant Police Commissioner John Lee said that this was "an exceptional case".^[3] Coroner Michael Chan Pik-kiu called it "the most difficult" inquest for a jury he had ever encountered.^[4]

Biography

Tsui was the elder of two children born in Shaowu, Fujian, and arrived in Hong Kong in 1978 with his mother. His father and brother arrived a year later. He attended the Kwun Tong Government Industrial Secondary School (now Kwun Tong Kung Lok Government Secondary School). After graduation, had had several jobs, including a spell with the Hong Kong Regiment.

Tsui joined the Royal Hong Kong Police in 1993; he regarded it as a well paid job with good benefits, and was a police constable for 13 years until his death in 2006.^[5] He was an outstanding cadet at the Hong Kong Police College, having won the "silver whistle".^[6]

Tsui was an excellent marksman. In 1993, he scored full marks in target shooting as well as simulated bank robbery shooting. From 2001 to 2005, in the tests held three times a year, he would score a faultless 48 points. According to shooting range records, he been trained to shoot left-handed. He had once claimed to a superior that he was ambidextrous.^[7]

From 1996 to 2001, Tsui made four attempts at the 'Police Constable/Senior Police Constable to Sergeant Promotion Qualifying Examination',^[8] He scored 68 marks in his 2000 attempt, earning him an interview.^[9] His stubbornness and difficulty in communication meant that he was never promoted.^[6] However, since 1999, he had given up applying for promotion. From then on until 2003, Tsui applied three times to join the Airport Security Unit, but failed. He failed a personality assessment during the first attempt, and subsequently failed because of insufficient fitness. Between 2002 and 2005, he was attached to the Tsing Yi district.

Tsui's wife, Lee Po-ling, works at the Social Welfare Department as a social security assistant. The couple met when she worked as a sales assistant at the airport, and Tsui was also stationed there. They married in 1997 and they had a daughter in 2000.^[10]

In October 2001, Tsui and his wife appeared together in a couples version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on ATV and won HK$60,000, and they claimed they would donate some of the money to charity.^[11]

Tsui, who was an avid sportsman, was an Oxfam Trailwalker, participated in marathons, and also liked paragliding. Unbeknownst to his wife, he would go to Mong Kok and Shenzhen weekly to frequent massage parlours, karaoke bars, and prostitutes.^[12] Also a habitual heavy gambler, Tsui was known to have made a HK$75,000 wager on Japan to win the 2004 Asian Cup final at odds of 2.8:1 on 7 August 2004.^[13]

First murder

Tsui was found responsible for murdering constable Leung Shing-yan (Chinese: 梁成恩) and stealing his revolver in March 2001.^[4] The 23-year-old Leung, who was single, had been on the force for five years.^[14]

At 12:05 on 14 March 2001, the Lei Muk Shue Police Station received a call from an unknown man who complained of excessive noise coming from a flat at Shek Wai Kok Estate. Leung responded to the call alone as his partner was still having lunch.^[15] His final radio call was received at 12:25 when he reported that he had arrived at the flat and nobody was responding to his knocks.^[15] He was subsequently shot five times at close range.^[14] Leung took three bullets in the head and two in the back at Flat 552, Shek To House Block B.^[6] Under police guard, paramedics wearing bulletproof vests rushed Leung to Yan Chai Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.^[15] His revolver, a fully loaded Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver, and one extra clip of six bullets were missing.^[14]

The noise complaint was apparently bogus, and was made from an untraceable mobile phone. The police suspected that the officer was lured to the scene for his gun.^[14] Heavily armed police locked down the building and mounted a search.^[15] Some 3,000 people, of which 2,000 police officers, were interviewed by the police, yet the perpetrator escaped detection.^[16] Later, forensic tests found that the DNA on a mask left at the crime scene matched Tsui's.^[17] PC Leung was interred at Gallant Garden.

Bank robbery

On 5 December 2001, Tsui planned and carried out armed bank robbery of a Hang Seng Bank branch at Belvedere Garden in Tsuen Wan, in which HK$500,000 was stolen, and a Pakistani security guard was killed.^[6]

At 12:10, a masked robber acting alone burst into the bank and shot a security guard.^[18] Zafar Iqbal Khan, aged 31, was shot three times by the robber, and died instantly. The perpetrator was a man with short hair and about 1.8 m tall, which Assistant Police Commissioner Yam described as a "calm, cold-blooded and brutal robber". A HK$2 million reward was issued.^[19]

Tsui matched the description of the perpetrator as captured on closed circuit television; key pieces of evidence were a red T-shirt, Mizuno brand shoes^[6] and the fact that footage showed the killer to be a left-handed gunman. He was placed near the scene by the police: Tsui boarded a bus from Yat Tung Estate in Tung Chung at 11:11 using the Octopus card issued to his wife; it was clocked in a minibus heading to Tsuen Wan at 11:53.^[18]

A red T-shirt carrying a similar distinctive logo as captured on CCTV was found at Tsui's home after his death. The T-shirt, bearing the logo of the Yinchuan International Motor-cycle Travel Festival was a gift to Tsui by the club secretary during his visit to the show in 2000. An expert witness identified the T-shirt as having been worn inside-out during the robbery.^[20] Ballistics identified the gun used in the robbery as having been a police service revolver taken from murdered police officer Leung Shing-yan.^[6]

Financial irregularities

An investigation by the Criminal Intelligence Bureau into Tsui's financial status from January 2000 to March 2006 revealed he had a total of 19 personal banking and investment accounts hidden from his wife. Total assets were HK$2,977,513.^[21] Seven personal and 12 investment accounts were opened under his name around mid-February in 2002, using a friend's address. Between February 2002 and October 2004, Tsui deposited HK$557,718 into the 19 accounts which could not be accounted for. All transactions were in cash.^[21] It was reported that Tsui was active in foreign exchange market, commodities, securities, funds, and margin trading, and had lost a total of HK$371,982 in those investments.^[21]

Tsui and his wife bought one flat in August 1997, and paid HK$574,800 in cash.^[21] Two years later, he bought a flat at Tung Chung Crescent with a HK$396,173 down payment, paying monthly instalments of HK$17,778 for a first and a second mortgage. The mortgages were paid off in just five years, HK$388,151 in 2001 and HK$500,000 in 2004.^[21]

The police alleged that the transactions were inconsistent with a constable's salary, and that the HK$500,000 unexplained cash would be consistent with the bank's loss during the heist in 2001.^[21]

Subway ambush

The pedestrian subway where the shootout took place

Tsui was also responsible for ambushing two police officers in a Tsim Sha Tsui pedestrian subway, triggering a shoot-out on 17 March 2006.^[4]

Twenty-eight-year-old Constable Sin Ka-keung (Chinese: 冼家強), survivor of the shoot-out, said that he and 33-year-old Constable Tsang Kwok-hang (Chinese: 曾國恒) were ambushed in the underpass at the junction of Austin and Canton Roads. Sin had seen a man lurking on the northern stairs of the subway before he was shot in the face. The attacker then tried to snatch his revolver.^[6] Tsui had started the exchange. Sin returned two shots, but missed.^[3] Sin grappled with the man and fired two shots before both of them slumped to the floor. Tsang was shot in the head and died, while Sin sustained gunshot wounds in the face and leg.^[6] Tsui was killed during the gun battle, having been shot five times in the torso by Tsang.^[3]

The police confirmed that the rusty revolver found beside Tsui's body to be the gun stolen from the late PC Leung in 2001.^[16]

Mental state

As the inquiry continued, Tsui was found to be an ambitious officer who often topped his class and did well in assessment tests. However, he was often denied promotions or opportunities to join elite units, such as the Airport Security Unit.^[22]

He was not media shy, as was demonstrated by his appearance on a television game show. He was happily photographed when he won the chance to buy his flat in a draw. He was again happy to be photographed during the democracy rally on 1 July 2004 dressed in traditional Chinese funeral style ("披麻戴孝").^[23]

An associate professor of social science at the City University of Hong Kong suggested that Tsui, like many criminals, did not know how to face frustration, and chose instead to take an illegal path in obtaining socially approved goals, such as money, prestige or recognition. It was suggested that the police force paid more attention to talented officers who fail to gain promotion, and recommended that there should be independent and confidential psychological counselling services for such troubled or frustrated officers.^[4]

A Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal profiler believed that Tsui's behaviour fit into most of the definitions of schizotypal personality disorder, while an expert from the Queensland University of Technology said Tsui's personality profile matched that of a serial killer who believed he was destined to change the world, probably tried to rise above his self-perceived unremarkable life by playing God, by taking lives.^[6]

Legacy

The Tsui Po-ko case has inspired some film and television productions, including:

Documentaries

• Anatomy of a Crime: HK's Rogue Cop^[24][25]

Fiction

• Mad Detective, a 2007 film
• A Great Way To Care 《仁心解碼》, a 2009 TVB series
• The Men of Justice, a 2010 ATV series^[26]
• Shades of Rogue, a 2014 short film

References