San Francisco police fatally shoot driver of car that crashed into Chinese consulate
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Police officers near the Chinese consulate, where a vehicle had crashed into the building on Oct 9.
PHOTO: REUTERS
SAN FRANCISCO - Law enforcement officers fatally shot the driver of a vehicle that ploughed through the Chinese consulate in San Francisco and crashed into the lobby of the building via an office on Monday, the city’s police said.
Official details of the incident were sketchy and the police said the identity of the driver and what precipitated the crash were not yet known.
There was no mention of anyone else being injured in the incident.
“I don’t know how many people were inside the visa office at the time of the collision,” the San Francisco Police Department spokeswoman, Sergeant Kathryn Winters, said at a news briefing hours later.
“When officers arrived on the scene, they found the vehicle had come to rest inside the lobby of the Chinese consulate. Officers entered, made contact with the suspect and an officer-involved shooting occurred,” Sgt Winters said.
“The suspect was later pronounced deceased at the hospital. This is an open and active investigation.”
She added that the city’s police were coordinating with investigators from the US State Department.
The Chinese diplomatic post in San Francisco issued a separate statement saying that an “unidentified person drove violently into the document hall of the consulate, posing a serious threat to the safety of the staff and people at the scene and causing serious damage to the facilities and property of the consulate”.
It added that it “strongly condemns this violent attack and reserves the right to pursue responsibility for the incident”.
Mr Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said the individual drove violently into the lobby of the Chinese Consulate-General “in an attempt to kill the people at the scene and the staff”.
“China strongly urges the United States to conduct a prompt investigation” and take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese diplomatic institutions and personnel, he said during a regular media press briefing on Tuesday.
The consulate said it would temporarily close its consular certificate hall from Oct 10, in a statement released on its WeChat account.
It added that it would inform the public on when services will resume.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident.
An ABC television affiliate station in San Francisco reported that its news crews observed a man covered in blood being carried away from the scene on a stretcher and rushed into an ambulance. REUTERS
