Man arrested for trying to firebomb Chinese embassy in US
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A man was arrested for continuously harassing a security officer and threatening to firebomb the Chinese embassy in the US.
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The Chinese embassy in the US
A Chicago man was arrested Thursday in Washington, DC for attempting to throw a molotov cocktail at the Chinese embassy in the US.
According to the authorities, the man - identified as Benjamin Grabinski - was arrested after throwing a bottle over the embassy's gate. Grabinski was holding a glass bottle with a piece of cloth on its top and attempted to light the cloth on fire.
When he failed to do that, the man threw the bottle over the embassy's gate and walked away before being detained by US Secret Service agents a few blocks from the embassy.
As a result, Judge Zia Faruqui ordered a mental evaluation of Grabinski, with a report due next Friday at the detention hearing. The man reportedly asked the judge to be held in “isolation” at the Washington, DC jail.
“I don’t want to have to turn [to] a white supremacist gang to survive in general population,” he told the judge, according to Politico.
An affidavit filed on Friday from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said that Grabinski was arrested after he “continuously harassed” a security officer, and allegedly threw a rock at the Chinese embassy on May 29th, saying that “Next time, it’s going to be a firebomb."
"About a week before, Grabinski had warned officers that he would attempt to firebomb the Chinese embassy," Politico highlighted.
The affidavit also mentioned that the man showed officers an Illinois state ID and a Department of Veterans Affairs card, adding that he told the officers that he flew from Chicago to Washington, DC to express “discontent for the Chinese government."
