Tourist season officially opened in Washington, D.C. on Monday, as police bagged one tourist for “suspicious” behavior in front of the Capitol building.
Wenhao Zhao, 33, of Sydney, Australia, was standing in front of the west wing of the U.S. Capitol building, his two suitcases filled with clothing and personal belongings next to him, as police SWAT teams quietly approached from behind. Zhao turned around and saw them, but they had already drawn weapons, and unable to do anything else, he stood still. Police then rushed in and tackled him.
“He said that if we wanted to know what was in the suitcase, we would have to open it ourselves,” said U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer. So the bomb squad moved in and blew up the suitcase that contained Zhao’s CD player, watch and some of his clothing, and hand-searched the other.
Police were expected to charge Zhao with disorderly conduct.
If you’re thinking of going to see the cherry blossoms, might I suggest going to Newark instead? Washington has become a dangerous place to be a tourist.
Update 14 April: Officials are now saying they intend to deport Wenhao Zhao for violating the terms of his visa waiver. (Australian citizens can enter the U.S. under a visa waiver program.) This neatly avoids having to have criminal charges or a messy trial or anything like that, where it might come out that the government overreacted and Zhao was doing nothing wrong. We can’t have the U.S. government looking bad, now can we?
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Re Quired
Apr 14, 2005
This is the first place I’ve seen that even mildly criticized the idiotic
response of the government officials — tackling an innocent man who had
done nothing to anyone and was calmly asserting his “right to be left alone”.
Now they say he’ll be deported for “public safety”?!! It’s so they won’t
have to charge him with a crime, since he did not commit one. Perhaps the
immigration courts are filled with kangaroos and don’t care if he was
an actual menace to public safety.
Michael Hampton
Apr 14, 2005
He’ll be deported because the government still doesn’t know what he was doing there or what his plans were. Did it ever occur to anyone that he might have been admiring the architecture?
The idiotic government response, as you put it, has just gotten worse.
Of course they’re going to deport him. They just want this to go away quickly, before anyone wises up and realizes that this guy wasn’t a threat to anybody, and the authorities were simply far too overzealous…too late.
The public would be a lot safer if we didn’t have the kind of jack-booted thug operations in this country that we have seen here.
Justin Credable
Apr 14, 2005
Hey the real question is …. What did he mean when he said that we would understand in a week …
Who is he …
What did he say at interrogations that police dissmised as mental health issues…
Why was it a dead story less than three days later…
Michael Hampton
Apr 14, 2005
You know, if I ever wanted to talk to the President, I would just call the White House.
Maybe the guy is mentally ill. Maybe he knows something about a terrorist plot. I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out in a week.
Justin Credable
Apr 15, 2005
Yeah.. you could call.. but then he made national news in 1 day .. and he traveled all the way to the capital to stand and say hey i want to talk to the P dady.. maby he was crazy.. oh well..
The way he looked into the camera on some of the photo’s.. didnt make me think crazy..
Jan 01, 2006
One year of homeland stupidity - Homeland Security or Homeland Stupidity