Driver who was shot after ramming Chinese consulate in San Francisco is identified

‘If he became radicalised, it was recent,’ says driver’s roommate

A driver fatally shot after ramming his car into the Chinese consulate in San Francisco has been identified as 31-year-old Zhanyuan Yang.

Yang rammed a blue sedan into the visa office on Geary Boulevard shortly after 3pm on Monday. The driver was killed when police then opened fire on the vehicle.

A witness said he was bleeding from the head as he exited the vehicle yelling about the CCP, an abbreviation for the Chinese Communist Party. Yang later died at the hospital.

The city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner identified the driver on Thursday, adding that his family had been notified. It provided no additional information.

The Chinese consulate's visa office reopened on Thursday after authorities publicly identified the driver.

Yang was reportedly waving a knife in close proximity to officers just moments before he was shot by the police, according to local media.

Investigators say they have recovered a crossbow from the scene and an unnamed White House source told the Associated Press that it is believed the driver was “acting with malign intent.”

The licence plate of the car Yang crashed into the visa office was registered under a different name, authorities said.

Police on Monday said they did not know the motive behind smashing the car into the consulate, which is in a residential neighbourhood next to a major street.

Yang was described as a "very reserved" person by his roommate. He had a cache of replica firearms at his Inner Sunset home along with a book about political assassinations, The San Francisco Standard reported.

He reportedly had five handguns in the room as well as a "pile of assault weapons and a knife in one corner".

Files in Yang's room indicated that he was from Shandong Province, according to the Standard, which reported that postcards on the wall suggest he had been living in the apartment since 2016. A large drone was also found in his room.

His roommate, who refused to be identified, said Yang had been acting "oddly in recent months".

She added: "If he became radicalised, it was recent."