Amidst the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, concerns have been raised following this incident.
 |
| Car crash in Chinese consulate in San Francisco |
San Francisco, CA, USA - October 10, 2023
On Monday, after a dramatic event involving a car crashing into the Chinese embassy and the driver being shot, police and emergency vehicles crowded the facility in San Francisco. Residents and officials in San Francisco's Japantown are on edge as events unfold at the corner of Laguna Street and Geary Boulevard.
Two anonymous persons with knowledge of the collision and subsequent events claim that a San Francisco police officer opened fire. Initial reports indicated that authorities suspected the motorist was armed. The San Francisco Fire Department rushed the badly wounded driver to the nearest hospital.
At the time of the mayhem, Stanford student Sergii Molchanov was in the process of submitting paperwork to the Chinese Consulate in order to get a visa. When the automobile crashed into the consulate, he was just a few meters away, he said. According to Molchanov, the driver got out of the blue Honda with a bloody head and yelled, "Where's the CCP?"
Molchanov said that security officers quickly intervened and subdued the driver. Molchanov didn't see the driver pull out a firearm, but he did see one of the guards pull out a knife. As for Molchanov's fear, he said, "He looked at me, and I was a little bit scared because I didn't know if he had any gun or something."
People inside the consulate started running out as fear spread. Molchanov heard two gunshots and the cops came minutes afterwards. The sight terrified and shocked him, and he said as much. Seeing it on TV is one thing, but seeing it in person is a whole other experience. There was widespread panic...I'm still trying to make sense of everything that just happened to me.
ABC7, a media partner of The Standard, captured on camera a Honda vehicle that had been wedged in the Geary Street entry of the embassy, where the visa office is located. The broken doorframe was eventually covered with a white sheet.
Since it was feared that the car had an explosive device, authorities sent a bomb squad and a canine trained to detect the presence of such devices. At the time of writing, at least eleven police cars and emergency vehicles were still there.
A neighbor in the next apartment block said she heard four or five gunshots and saw consular employees running into the courtyard after the shooting.
Authorities have not determined if the driver purposefully crashed into the structure, therefore the crash's cause is unknown. It should be noted, however, that the Chinese embassy has had security issues in the past. In 2014, the consulate's main entrance was the target of an arson attack, severely damaging the building. The San Francisco Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security all looked into the event.
A vigil was organized in front of the consulate in November for the victims of a fire in China's Xinjiang Province, and roughly a hundred individuals showed up. Covid procedures were criticized for allegedly stopping victims from exiting the building during the incident, despite official denials of responsibility for this action by the Chinese government.
San Francisco is gearing up to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting next month, and this incident comes at a crucial moment since it might potentially lure Chinese President Xi Jinping and other international leaders. Concerns have been raised about how this security breach would affect the summit, which is set to take place from November 12 to 18.
This story is still unfolding, so stay tuned for updates as the investigation continues.