San Francisco police investigate at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. Officials said a car rammed into the consulate building Monday, coming to a stop in the lobby and creating a chaotic scene that ended with police shooting the driver, who later died at the hospital. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group via AP)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A car rammed into the Chinese consulate in San Francisco on Monday, coming to a stop in the lobby and creating a chaotic scene that ended with police shooting the driver, who later died at the hospital, officials said.

San Francisco police said they didn’t know why the unidentified driver smashed through the front of the consulate, located on a major street across from the city’s Japantown neighborhood. In a statement, the Chinese Consulate general described it as a “violent attack.”

Police descended on the consulate shortly after 3 p.m. on a report of a vehicle crashing into the building and urged people to avoid the area. Video from the scene showed a blue Honda sedan inside the lobby of the consulate’s visa office.

Officers entered the building, made contact with the suspect and opened fire, San Francisco police Sgt. Kathryn Winters said during a brief news conference. Despite “life-saving efforts” the suspect died at a hospital.

Police did not describe how the shooting unfolded, how many officers fired or if the driver had a weapon. There were no reports of any injured people inside the building.

Police are working and coordinating with investigators from the U.S. State Department and the Chinese Consulate.

“I wish I could give you more but this is a very complex investigation,” Winters said.

The statement from the Chinese Consulate general demanded more details about what happened and asked that it be “dealt with seriously in accordance with the law.”

“Our embassy severely condemns this violent attack,” the statement said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin repeated that statement at a daily briefing Tuesday without giving any details about damage to the consulate or injuries to staff and visitors.

“We strongly urge the U.S. to launch a swift investigation and take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel there in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations,” Wang said, referring to the 1961 agreement governing relations between countries.

The San Francisco consulate has been targeted a number of times before. Among the most serious was a fire set by a Chinese man on New Year’s Day 2014 at the main entrance. It charred a section of the outside of the building.

The man, who was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, told authorities he was driven by voices he was hearing. He was sentenced to nearly three years in prison.

San Francisco is preparing to host next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a gathering of world leaders from Pacific Rim nations. President Joe Biden plans to attend but it’s not clear if Chinese President Xi Jinping will come.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A car rammed into the Chinese consulate in San Francisco on Monday, coming to a stop in the lobby and creating a chaotic scene that ended with police shooting the driver, who later died at the hospital, officials said.

Police descended on the consulate building after 3 p.m. on a report of a vehicle crashing into the building and urged people to avoid the area. Officers entered the lobby of the consulate’s visa office, made contact with the suspect and there was a shooting involving an officer and the driver, police Sgt. Kathryn Winters said during a short news conference. Despite “life-saving efforts,” the suspect was pronounced dead at the hospital, police said.

Television cameras showed a Honda sedan crashed into the visa office and the doors in front of the building were cordoned off.

Winters said they didn’t know why the vehicle crashed into the building or how many people were inside at the time but said they had no reports of other injuries.

Police are working and coordinating with investigators from the U.S. Department of State and the Chinese consulate.

“I wish I could give you more but this is a very complex investigation,” Winters said.

A statement from the Chinese consulate denounced Monday’s incident.

“On the afternoon of Oct. 9, 2023, local time, an unidentified person drove a vehicle and violently crashed into the document hall of our consulate, posing a serious threat to the safety of staff and people on site, and damaging the facilities of our consulate,” the statement said. “Our embassy severely condemns this violent attack.” The consulate said that it has demanded more details about the incident and asked that it be “dealt with seriously in accordance with the law.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin repeated that statement at a daily briefing Tuesday afternoon without giving any details about damage to the consulate or injuries to staff and visitors.

“We strongly urge the U.S. to launch a swift investigation and take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel there in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations,” Wang said, referring to the 1961 agreement governing relations between countries.

China’s Consulate General sits on a major street across from San Francisco’s Japantown neighborhood.

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An armed forces color guard carries a casket containing the body of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., at San Francisco International Airport, Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/D. Ross Cameron)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein returned Saturday to her hometown for the final time when a military jet carrying the late Democratic senator’s body landed at San Francisco International Airport.

The long-serving senator and political trailblazer died Thursday at her home in Washington, D.C., after a series of illnesses. At 90, she was the oldest member of Congress after first being elected to the Senate in 1992.

The arrival of her body was not open to the public. No details have been shared about services.

The former San Francisco mayor was a passionate advocate for priorities important to her state, including environmental protection, reproductive rights and gun control. But she also was known as a pragmatic, centrist lawmaker who reached out to Republicans and sought middle ground.

Her death was followed by a stream of tributes from around the nation, including from President Joe Biden, who served with Feinstein for years in the Senate and called her “a pioneering American” and a “cherished friend.”

California’s junior senator, Democrat Alex Padilla, called her “a towering figure — not just in modern California history, but in the history of our state and our nation.”

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters said Feinstein “spent her entire career breaking glass ceilings and opening doors into areas that had been perpetually dominated by men.”

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to soon appoint a replacement for the vacant Senate seat.

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Janie Har, Haven Daley, and The Associated Press

1 month ago

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant “X” sign that was installed Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters.

The complaint comes as Twitter owner Elon Musk continues his rebrand of the social media platform.

City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and safety reasons.

Musk explains Twitter rebranding, vows to add features

The X appeared after San Francisco police stopped workers on Monday from removing the brand’s iconic bird and logo from the side of the building, saying they hadn’t taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell.

Any replacement letters or symbols would require a permit to ensure “consistency with the historic nature of the building” and to make sure additions are safely attached to the sign, Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection, said earlier this week.

Erecting a sign on top of a building also requires a permit, Hannan said Friday.

“Planning review and approval is also necessary for the installation of this sign. The city is opening a complaint and initiating an investigation,” he said in an email.

Workers install lighting on an “X” sign at the Twitter headquarters in downtown San Francisco, on Friday, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Musk unveiled a new “X” logo to replace Twitter’s famous blue bird as he remakes the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year. The X started appearing at the top of the desktop version of Twitter on Monday.

Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla, has long been fascinated with the letter X and had already renamed Twitter’s corporate name to X Corp. after he bought it in October. One of his children is called “X,” though the child’s actual name is a collection of letters and symbols.

On Friday afternoon, a worker on a lift machine made adjustments to the sign and then left.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco supervisors voted Tuesday to put the brakes on a controversial policy that would have let police use robots for deadly force, reversing course just days after their approval of the plan generated fierce pushback and warnings about the militarization and automation of policing.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to explicitly ban the use of robots in such a fashion for now. But they sent the issue back to a committee for further discussion and could vote in the future to let police use robots in a lethal manner in limited cases.

The board voted last week to allow the use of deadly robots in extreme circumstances. The police department said it had no plans to arm the robots with guns but wanted the ability to put explosives on them and use then to contact, incapacitate or disorient dangerous or armed suspects when lives are at risk.

The initial vote thrust the famously liberal city into the center of a debate about the future of technology and policing, with some saying arming robots was a step too close to something one would see in a dystopian science fiction movie. Though robot technology for policing has become more widely available, departments across the country have rarely used it to confront or kill suspects.

Three supervisors who rejected the policy from the beginning joined dozens of protesters Monday outside City Hall to urge the board to change course. They chanted and held signs with phrases like “We all saw that movie… No Killer Robots.”

Supervisor Dean Preston was among them, and on Tuesday he told his colleagues the public hadn’t been given enough time to voice their concerns about such a pressing issue.

“The people of San Francisco have spoken loud and clear: There is no place for killer police robots in our city,” he said in a statement after the vote. “We should be working on ways to decrease the use of force by local law enforcement, not giving them new tools to kill people.”

The vote was the result of a new state law that requires police departments to inventory equipment including certain guns, grenades, armored vehicles and battering rams and to seek explicit approval for their use. So far, only San Francisco and Oakland have discussed lethal robots as part of that law. Oakland police wanted to arm robots with shotguns but backed down in the face of public opposition, instead opting for pepper spray.

Some San Francisco officials wanted to proceed with allowing robots to use deadly force in certain cases, arguing nothing substantive had changed to warrant a reversal. But the vote to advance the broader police equipment policy — including the ban on lethal robots — passed unanimously.

It still allows police to use robots to check out potentially dangerous scenes so that officers can stay back.

“Having robots that have eyes and ears and can remove bombs, which happens from time to time, is something that we want the police department to do while we continue to have this very controversial discussion,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who brought forward last week’s motion around the use of robots.

The new policy needs another vote to take effect.

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INDIANAPOLIS – The NFL will enter the final quarter of the season with this week’s games.

Week 14 is the last weekend in which teams have a bye. After Monday night, every team will have played 13 games with four left on their schedule. Weeks 15-18 will feature a full slate of 16 games.

Our “Big Game Bound” marquee matchup this week is Tampa Bay at San Francisco as the 49ers try to win their sixth straight game.

BGB host Chris Hagan talks with KRON’s Kate Rooney about whether or not the Niners can keep the good times rolling now that quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is out with a foot injury.

This week’s show features reports from the Raiders, Bills and Giants. We’ll also check in with former NFL running back Jarrett Payton for his weekly picks.

“Big Game Bound” streams every Thursday at 12 pm ET leading up to Super Bowl LVII in Arizona.

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