An off-duty Hong Kong firefighter has been arrested after surrendering to police over an alleged assault, the South China Morning Post has learned, following a viral video showing him shouting at and shoving a young couple in a Mong Kok shopping centre.
A source said on Monday that the 48-year-old man turned himself in at Mong Kok Police Station on Sunday, accompanied by his wife. He told police he was a firefighter.
“The arrestee admitted that he had acted that way as he suspected the [other] man … had intentionally bumped into him,” the source said.
The arrest followed an online backlash triggered by a 24-second video, posted on Instagram on Saturday, showing an altercation between a middle-aged pair and a younger couple at Sim City shopping centre in Mong Kok.
In the video, the older couple accuse the younger pair of bumping into them at a crowded escalator entrance.
The video begins with the middle-aged woman saying she did not squeeze herself into the younger couple.
The middle-aged man, dressed in a striped green T-shirt and wearing a green cap, then shouts at the young couple at close quarters, accusing them of bumping into him and his partner.