STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.

Protesters try to leave Hong Kong campus but avoid arrest

Nov 17, 2019 | 9:16 PM

HONG KONG — For days, Hong Kong’s protesters fortified a university campus to keep police from getting in. Now, cornered by authorities, they are trying to get out.

Officers repelled one attempt Monday morning with tear gas, driving a few hundred protesters back into the Hong Kong Polytechnic campus.

The protesters want to avoid arrest. The police have set up a dragnet around the campus to pick up as many as they can.

It’s a game that has played out repeatedly during the city’s months of anti-government unrest. Protesters cause disruption, then try to melt away before police run in to grab as many as they can.