Firing of live rounds was lawful and fair: Hong Kong police defends use of live ammunition

Hong Kong police commissioner Stephen Lo said on Tuesday that police were justified in firing live ammunition as violent clashes swept through the Chinese-ruled city on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.

Police said an officer shot an 18-year-old man in the shoulder in the Tsuen Wan area of the New Territories with a live round - the first to have been hit by live ammunition in almost four months of unrest.

Watch: Hong Kong Protest - video shows Police shooting protester

Protesters have previously been hit with bean bag rounds and rubber bullets and officers have fired live rounds in the air.

Police chief Stephen Lo said the firing of live rounds - which were discharged in three places - was lawful and fair. He added that 180 people were arrested in Tuesday's protests.

Cat-and-mouse clashes spread from the shopping district of Causeway Bay to the Admiralty area of government offices on Hong Kong island, and then on to the New Territories bordering mainland China, with police firing tear gas and water cannon at petrol bomb-throwing protesters.

Tuesday's violence was the most widespread since the unrest erupted in early June, plunging the former British colony into its biggest political crisis in decades and posing the most serious popular challenge to President Xi Jinping since he came to power.