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The protesters do make firebombs and have used them on people, it doesn't surprise me that some would carry something flammable with them.
e.g. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10070000/hong-kong-protesters-off-duty-cop-firebomb
"The guy survived and knew how to minimize the damage to himself."
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There's no need to come up with tortured reasoning to avoid acknowledging that sometimes some people do things that range from the silly to the genuinely evil in the heat of the moment.