A man was fatally shot by police in the early morning of June 25 after he went on a forklift destruction spree in Yantai, Shandong.
According to Beijing News, the rampage began at 7.20am on Xingfu Zhong Lu, in Yantai’s Zhifu District. Aside from the driver, the incident resulted in one death and over 10 injuries.
The forklift driver, identified as 45-year-old Wang Zhihua, was originally from Suihua, Heilongjiang province.
Multiple videos of the episode have since circulated online, revealing the scale of damage done in a relatively short period of time.
In one clip, the machine’s forks have hoisted a black car into the air as it speeds along the street, smashing into several halted vehicles along the way. Others show the turquoise forklift ramming its forks into cars and dragging them along the pavement. Other cars – and even a city bus – are flipped on their sides as Wang tears through the busy street.
Pedestrians can be heard screaming at the deranged man to stop, and one person attempts to throw a brick at the vehicle’s cab as it passed by.
The pandemonium came to an abrupt end when, after multiple efforts to stop Wang, police surrounded the forklift and opened fire. At least nine shots can be heard in one video before it cuts off.
Watch footage of the carnage below (VPN off):
Authorities said in a statement that the use of lethal force was necessary to “protect the safety of the people and their property,” according to South China Morning Post.
Wang and his wife owned a local forklift business consisting of five or six vehicles, and lived in an apartment a short distance from the incident.
A local grocery store owner, surname Zhang, told SCMP that Wang and his family had been in Yantai for about two decades, and lived “a pretty good life.”
While the motive for Wang’s erratic and violent behavior is unclear, Zhang suspects that he “might have had a mental lapse.”
“He looked pretty normal when he came here with his wife to do his shopping,” Zhang told SCMP. “The scene was horrifying, we never expected he would do that.”
The tragedy remains under police investigation.
[Cover image via Zhejiang TV/QQ Video]
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