It’s late, and I’m tired, but this news made me think.
Article taken directly from ANN:
At least 16 people were injured, and two have been confirmed as dead, after a truck collided with pedestrians and the truck’s driver allegedly stabbed people at Tokyo’s Akihabara otaku shopping district on Sunday afternoon. A man reportedly struck five to six individuals with a truck at an intersection near the main Japan Railways station at around 12:35 p.m. The man allegedly proceeded to leave the vehicle and stab people on the street. Later that afternoon, the police arrested a 25-year-old male named Tomohiro Katō on suspicion of attempted murder by “stabbing one person after another with a knife.” Kato was born in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan, but lives in Shizuoka Prefecture’s Susono City in central Japan.
16 people were taken to hospitals, and two people — a 19-year-old male and a 74-year-old male — have reportedly died. Three more were in cardiac arrest.
Source: Sankei Shimbun, Nikkei via Patrick Macias
Update: Details about the suspect and the victims added.
Update 2: FNN has added video coverage. Sunday is usually the busiest day for pedestrian shoppers in Akihabara, as it is the day that the most people have a day off school or work in Japan.
Update 3: Sankei Shimbun now reports that a third person, a 47-year-old male, has died. A 17th person, a police officer, was also injured. The truck was a two-ton rental vehicle. According to eyewitnesses, the truck entered the intersection in a zigzag manner and passed the vehicles that had stopped at a red light to strike pedestrians on the crosswalk.
Update 4: Nikkei is reporting that five people have died. Of the injured, 14 were male, and 3 were female. The incident occurred at the intersection of Chūō and Kanda Myōjin Streets, two of the main throughways of the area.
Update 5: NHK News reports that a 21-year-old woman is the sixth person confirmed as having died in the incident. Sankei Shimbun lists the other victims as a 19-year-old male named Kazunori Fujino, a 74-year-old male named Katsuhiko Nakamura, a 47-year-old male, a 29-year-old male, and a 20-year-old male. Sankei Shimbun also displayed a reader-submitted photograph of the suspect being arrested.
Although I am utterly horrified by this sort of incident, I believe that the man still deserves some sort of redemption. If it really turns out to be him who holds responsibility for murdering those people and stabbing them several times, I wonder if Japan will punish him with a death sentence or lock him up in jail for life. The fact that he did this could mean that he has mental issues, but even so, I hope his excuse for killing them isn’t because of stress. On the other hand, I don’t think anyone has a good enough reason to kill someone else. Actually, it doesn’t even matter why the man did what he did, I just hope that he will reflect on his actions and find redemption. I pray for those people that died as well.
Other bloggers who have also expressed their thoughts on this incident: Setsuna-san, double, issa-sa, and CalAggie.
More:
Mayhem in Akihabara - An Otaku?s Paradise Is At Stake!
