Commenting on the exercise, the officer-in-charge of the Exercise Unit, Chief Inspector Ma Kwok-wah said: "The Force endeavours to develop the Police College into a Centre of Excellence in Police Training and Development to enhance service quality and the professionalism of officers. Perfecting the foundation training for PIs is one of the most important means to achieve that.

"Strategically, we have introduced a series of scenario-based exercises into their leadership training. Through these exercises with scenarios modified from real incidents, PIs can learn how to flexibly apply the knowledge learnt from classroom and strengthen their ability to respond to highly volatile situations. We believe this mode of training can greatly boost the competency of PIs and their confidence to face future challenges," CIP Ma added.

The Exercise Unit's Senior Inspector Herman Chu Kam-wai said that during their leadership training, PIs are required to perform simulated outdoor duties during a wide variety of scenario-based exercises modified from genuine cases, e.g. robbery, wounding, theft, drugs cases and domestic violence incidents. Some cases are not related to crime, e.g. suicide, gas leakage and dead body found.

To stay abreast of the developments of society, the unit considers recent cases in designing new exercises. To make the training environment as real as possible, exercises are conducted not only in the Police College, but also in some public areas such as housing estates. On the other hand, the unit also uses props and employs part-time actors to play different roles in the exercises.

"Training is conducted progressively and we teach recruits on how to handle different incidents, and develop PIs' command and control proficiency. At the end of training, we arrange the PIs and RPCs to perform a joint 'Beat Incident Exercise'. The scale of this exercise would be bigger in size and a bit more complicated in nature, e.g. triad gang fights, triads challenging the police, and public order events. If the situation permits, outside units would be invited to join the exercise. Like this time, EU HKI deployed a platoon and police dogs to participate in the exercise on their Training Day. The exercise gave recruits an opportunity to interact with other units and learn from their experiences for the benefit of their confidence in rising to the occasion," SIP Chu added.

Senior Inspector Wong Cham-sum of EU HKI considered EU one of the frontline units for handling serious and emergency incidents and providing immediate support to Districts, such as arranging trained video team members to collect evidence in some incidents. Through the joint exercise with the Police College, EU officers would boost their abilities to handle emergencies and evaluate the effectiveness of their procedures and equipment in dealing with similar incidents. On the other hand, recruits would understand better the nature of their future jobs and would be more capable and confident in handling emergencies and in co-ordinating with other units.

Handling the unruly challenging the police