Hong Kong residents demonstrated again on Wednesday, condemning the shooting of an 18-year-old student.

Tsang Chi-kin was among a group of protesters beating a solitary police officer on the ground when the officer shot the student in the chest, video footage showed. The event was just one incident on Tuesday, when clashes escalated dramatically for the People's Republic of China's national day.

Opposition groups seized on the event as an unjustified act of police violence.

"The Hong Kong police have gone trigger-happy and nuts," pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo said. "The sensible police response should have been to use a police baton or pepper spray, etc., to fight back. It wasn't exactly an extreme situation and the use of a live bullet simply cannot be justified."

There were several protests on Wednesday, including a gathering of more than 2,000 people in an open-air stadium near Tsang's school in Tsuen Wan district where people held signs saying "Don't shoot our kids" and chanted "No rioters, only tyranny."

Earlier, hundreds of others, including students, sat outside Tsang's school chanting anti-police slogans. At another unsanctioned rally, a large crowd of people, including office workers in shirts and suits, gathered in a park and then marched through the city's commercial district.

Police announced on Wednesday they had arrested Tsang, despite his critical wound and hospitalization. They said they would decide whether to press charges.

Police defended the officer's actions as "reasonable and lawful." Commissioner Stephen Lo said the officer had feared for his life and made "a split-second" decision to fire a single shot at close range.

"He only had one option, that is to fire the gun to immediately resolve the danger," deputy commissioner Tang Ping-keung told reporters.

Police revealed they arrested 269 people on Tuesday, from age 12 to 71, the largest daily toll since protests began. They also fired a record 1,400 rounds of tear gas, 900 rubber bullets, 230 sponge rounds, 190 bean bag rounds and five live rounds as warning shots. In comparison, police fired 1,000 tear gas canisters in the first two months of the protests.

Also Wednesday, a lawyer announced an Indonesian journalist had lost her vision after police shot her in the eye with a rubber bullet on Sunday. On Tuesday, more than 70 people were admitted to the hospital.

aw/msh (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)

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