Tsui Po-ko was a police constable in Hong Kong. He was never charged with a crime and never stood trial. On March 17, 2006, he died in an exchange with two uniformed constables on patrol in Tsim Sha Tsui, a district of Kowloon, and one of those constables died as well. Within days, police told the public that the same man was linked to two earlier deaths in Tsuen Wan in 2001, a constable and another man, which had gone unsolved for years. A coroner's jury confirmed that link in April 2007, after an inquest of 37 days. Its verdicts were findings of unlawful killing in an inquest; they were not a criminal conviction, and Tsui was never tried.
Tsui was born on May 17, 1970, in Shaowu, a county in Fujian province in southeastern China. In 1977 he moved to Hong Kong with his mother. His father and younger brother followed the next year. In 1989 he took part in training with the Royal Hong Kong Regiment but did not join it. The following year he traveled around Europe as a backpacker, and his parents separated.
In 1993 he became a full-time police officer after a period as an auxiliary officer, and he received the Silver Whistle on graduating. He married in 1997. By 2006 he had a wife and a six-year-old daughter, and the family lived in Tung Chung, in the New Territories.
Press accounts after his death described a constable who had done well on his police academy examinations and was then passed over for promotion several times. Colleagues were said to have seen him as aloof and not a team player. Criminologists asked about him in 2006 offered their own readings. Dennis Wong, head of the criminology department at City University of Hong Kong, said Tsui seemed driven by "aggregated frustration," and described a person who, unable to reach goals such as money, status and power by legitimate means, turned to illegitimate ones. These were commentators' views. The police and the coroner's jury did not establish a motive.
Police Constable Leung Shing-yan, 23, died on March 14, 2001, in Tsuen Wan, a district in the western New Territories. The South China Morning Post described him as the first Hong Kong police officer killed on duty since 1994. His death remained unsolved for five years.
Police later told the Legislative Council that Tsui and Leung had not known one another, though they said they were still checking whether the two had ever met while on duty. A paper that the Security Bureau, the police and the Department of Justice gave the Legislative Council in April 2006 said that police, in reviewing this case and the one that followed in December, had interviewed more than 8,500 people and sought expert advice in Hong Kong and overseas.
On December 5, 2001, Zafar Iqbal Khan, 31, died in Tsuen Wan. His death was also unsolved when Tsui died in 2006. The inquest later heard that police had linked it to Leung's case.
In the early hours of March 17, 2006, an off-duty officer and two uniformed constables on patrol were involved in an exchange in Tsim Sha Tsui. One constable, aged 33, died that morning; the other, aged 28, survived. The off-duty officer also died; police did not at first confirm his name.
The constable who died was Tsang Kwok-hang. Later reports confirmed that the dead man was Tsui, then 35.
On the day itself, Chief Executive Donald Tsang and the Secretary for Security, Ambrose Lee, said they were deeply shocked and saddened and visited the surviving constable. The Commissioner of Police, Dick Lee Ming-kwai, said the force shared those feelings and that the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau had taken charge of the investigation. Asked at the time whether the case was connected to the 2001 death of Constable Leung, he said further investigation was needed.
The force said its investigation showed that Tsui had acted alone. Assistant Commissioner John Lee Ka-chiu said Tsui had no triad involvement, contrary to early speculation. At a media session on March 20, 2006, he said there was "sufficient evidence to charge the suspect for all the three cases had he been alive."
Asked on April 7, 2006, whether the events had anything to do with illegal soccer gambling, the same assistant commissioner said there was no evidence of it. Police had also set a team to work on the case: the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) supervised it directly, a psychologist was engaged to examine the suspect's state of mind and motive, and a senior government counsel from the Department of Justice reviewed the evidence.
The Legislative Council's Panel on Security held a special meeting on April 7, 2006. Several legislators, including Margaret Ng, Audrey Eu and Emily Lau, along with the panel chairman, asked for an independent inquiry. The Deputy Secretary for Security, Cheung Siu-hing, answered that an independent committee was not needed "for the time being." The government would wait for the judicial process, which was likely to include an inquest, before considering an independent inquiry. Police had sent a preliminary report to the coroner and recommended an inquest, with a final report to follow once the investigation ended. The police asked that the coroner deal with the March 2006 events and both 2001 deaths together.
The Administration's information paper for that meeting also touched on whether Hong Kong should test officers' psychological fitness. It declined to comment in detail, saying that most such tests are used for selecting personnel and that their usefulness in screening for mental problems was inconclusive.
The inquest opened at the Coroner's Court before Coroner Michael Chan Pik-kiu. The court heard the four deaths together: Leung, Khan, Tsang and Tsui himself. Arthur Luk Yee-shun, the coroner's officer, led the evidence. The hearings, scheduled for 37 days, ran over about two months and called more than 100 witnesses. On the twelfth day the court was told of evidence that tied the 2006 events to the two earlier deaths and that had led police back to the 2001 cases.
Tsui's family was refused legal aid and had no lawyer until a barrister volunteered.
On April 25, 2007, the five-member jury announced its findings. It found that Tsui "unlawfully killed" Constable Leung Shing-yan and Zafar Iqbal Khan in Tsuen Wan in 2001, and that he "unlawfully killed" Constable Tsang Kwok-hang in Tsim Sha Tsui in March 2006. The jury also found that Tsui's own death was a lawful killing.
An inquest determines the causes and circumstances of death, not criminal liability. The verdicts therefore settled the official record of who caused each death but did not amount to a conviction. Questions remained open after the verdicts: how Tsui had stayed undetected for so long, and what his reason had been for the 2006 events. Tsui's mother spoke to reporters outside the court after the findings were read.
The police force changed its recruitment rules. Applicants for constable and inspector posts, about 3,000 a year, would take a psychometric test in the final interview round: three sets of papers over about three hours, with results valid for a year. Police said it would focus on "cognitive abilities, emotional resilience and personality traits." Until then, recruits had faced only physical and integrity checks.
Later, the Secretary for Justice, acting on the Commissioner of Police's instructions, filed a writ in the High Court against Tsui's estate. The government sought more than HK$3.5 million to recover compensation paid to the surviving constable and to Tsang's family, plus its costs in earlier District Court claims. The outcome is not on record.
Never tried: none of the three deaths was tried in any court, and no conviction exists. The coroner's verdicts are the only formal findings, and they describe causes and circumstances of death.
Motive: the force's own statements in 2006 described the investigation of motive as continuing, and it remained among the questions left open after the verdicts. Commentators' theories, including the "aggregated frustration" reading, remain opinion.
Gambling: an early press suggestion that the events of March 2006 were connected to illegal soccer betting was answered by police on April 7, 2006, with a statement that there was no evidence of it.
Length of service without promotion: one account had him passed over several times in the previous five years; another had him go 13 years without promotion.
May 17, 1970: Tsui Po-ko is born in Shaowu, Fujian province.
1977: Moves to Hong Kong with his mother.
1993: Becomes a full-time Hong Kong police officer.
1997: Marries.
March 14, 2001: Constable Leung Shing-yan, 23, dies in Tsuen Wan.
December 5, 2001: Zafar Iqbal Khan, 31, dies in Tsuen Wan.
March 17, 2006: Constable Tsang Kwok-hang, 33, dies in Tsim Sha Tsui; a second constable survives; Tsui dies in an exchange with police officers.
March 20, 2006: Police tell a media session there was sufficient evidence to charge him in all three cases had he lived.
April 7, 2006: The Legislative Council's Panel on Security meets; the government says no independent inquiry is needed for the time being.
2007: Joint inquest into four deaths at the Coroner's Court.
April 25, 2007: Jury finds Tsui unlawfully killed Leung, Khan and Tsang, and that his own death was lawful.
Later: Secretary for Justice files a High Court claim of more than HK$3.5 million against his estate.