Chinese authorities have removed flowers laid in remembrance of the victims of a mass killing that left 35 people dead and more than 40 injured in the city of Zhuhai. They've also wiped photos and videos of the incident from social media.
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00:00A driver's deadly actions caught on tape.
00:03The social media footage captured just a small part of an attack that saw an SUV plow through
00:09crowds of people in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai.
00:12According to authorities, at least 35 people were killed and another 43 injured near a
00:17city sports center.
00:19They say the attacker was angry about his divorce settlement and is now in a coma due
00:23to self-inflicted stab wounds.
00:26Local residents are shaken.
00:27I was shocked.
00:28My husband would go jogging there every night.
00:29I called him right away.
00:30He happened to be busy that day, so he didn't go.
00:31It felt like a terrorist attack.
00:32It was a shock to me.
00:33The situation in our society is getting worse.
00:34But few people in China may have seen this footage.
00:35Videos and photos of the incident have remained in the public domain.
00:36At the same time, several videos show government workers removing flowers from a memorial for
01:05the victims and discouraging people from lingering at the site of the attack.
01:22China watchers say it's not unusual, part of an effort to control public perception
01:27of China as a safe and stable society.
01:30The government narrative is not that nobody died in Zhuhai or that this didn't happen.
01:34What the government doesn't want is for the public to be able to lead the narrative,
01:38for the public to be able to shape the narrative, to talk about contributing factors that can
01:43lead to such an incident like this or a pattern of mass killing events in recent months.
01:50The shutting down of the memorials by officials coincides with the city's hosting of China's
01:54largest air show, in which it debuted some of its most advanced military equipment.
02:00The way the government treats people who try to commemorate or memorialize victims,
02:05that that's such a natural thing to do in society, its knee-jerk reaction is we can't
02:10even let the public properly memorialize.
02:14And I think that's one of the things that's, it's always a little bit shocking and hurtful
02:18to watch in an event like this.
02:21Whatever the motivations of the killer and of the Chinese authorities, dozens of families
02:27are left to grieve.
02:28Whether others in China will be able to grieve with them is a different question.
02:33John Su and Chris Gorin for Taiwan Plus.