China has seen a series of indiscriminate car-ramming incidents recently. Chinese officials confirmed that a vehicle hit pedestrians near a primary school in Beijing on Thursday, May 15. The driver responsible for the incident has been apprehended. The extent of injuries and casualties is currently unknown.
On May 15, news circulated online about a car crashing into pedestrians at the entrance of Qianjin Primary School in Beijing’s Haidian District. Videos circulated online showed individuals lying on the ground. Some netizens claimed, “A black Tesla maliciously rammed into a crowd at the school when classes were dismissed, hitting over a dozen people!” “When I arrived, there were four elderly individuals on the ground.” “After hitting people, the driver fled.”
A passerby told a reporter from Da Ji Yuan, “I’m not sure if any students were injured. The incident happened around 3 pm, and when I passed by around 4 pm, I saw many police cars. A bystander said that five or six people were hit. The perpetrator has been caught; it seems like a retaliation against society, right at the school gate, it’s truly terrifying.”
Some people also said that students were not injured.
According to mainland Chinese media “China News Weekly,” news circulated online about a car ramming into pedestrians at the entrance of a primary school in Beijing’s Haidian District on Thursday. The Haidian District Education Commission confirmed that indeed there was an incident where a car hit pedestrians near the mentioned school, and commission officials have rushed to the scene.
Personnel from the Haidian District Traffic Support Team in Zhongguancun Brigade stated in the afternoon that the scene had been handled, the driver was in custody, and an investigation into the cause of the accident is ongoing. The injured individuals have been taken to the hospital, and further details will be released in a subsequent report.
In the past few months, China has seen a surge in cases of violence against the public, with several involving car-rammings.
On November 11 last year, a car-ramming incident occurred at the Zhuhai Sports Center in Guangdong, resulting in 35 deaths and 43 injuries, according to official reports. On November 16, a knife attack took place at the Yixing Institute of Wuxi Arts and Crafts in Jiangsu, causing 8 deaths and 17 injuries. On November 19, in Yong’an Elementary School in Dingcheng District, Changde, Hunan, a suspect drove a car into a crowd, causing multiple students and parents to be injured.
On the evening of April 22 this year around 5:45 pm, a car rammed into a crowd outside a primary school in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, with multiple injuries and reports of fatalities.
On the evening of May 4, an incident occurred in Tengzhou City, Shandong Province, where a small car rammed into passengers waiting at a bus stop, resulting in at least seven to eight injuries.
Around 2 pm on May 15, an incident involving a person wielding a fruit knife occurred at the northwest area (outside the security checkpoint) of the first floor of Guangzhou South Railway Station, injuring one person.