Ex- employee kills 19 in Japan

Suspect had threatened to attack disabled people center

A man who had threatened attacks on disabled people went on a knife rampage Tuesday at the care center where he previously worked, leaving 19 people dead in Japan’s worst mass killing in decades.

The 26- year- old had been hospitalized earlier this year after delivering a letter to parliament in which he threatened to kill hundreds of the disabled.

He turned himself in at a police station, carrying bloodied knives and admitting to officers, “I did it.”

“The disabled should all disappear,” he reportedly said.

Authorities identified the attacker as Satoshi Uematsu and said he had worked at the care center for mentally disabled people in Sagamihara, a city of more than 700,000 people west of Tokyo, until February.

They said the attack began in the early hours of the morning when Uematsu broke a firstfloor window to get in. Public broadcaster NHK reported that he tied up one caregiver before starting to stab the residents.

A doctor at one of the hospitals where victims were taken said some had deep wounds to the neck.

“The patients are very shocked mentally and they cannot speak now,” the doctor told NHK.

A fleet of ambulances, police cars and fire trucks converged on the Tsukui Yamayuri-en center, a low- rise complex nestled against forested hills, which was cordoned off and draped with yellow “Keep Out” tape.

The mass killing is believed to be the nation’s worst since 1938, when a man armed with an axe, sword and rifle went on a rampage that left 30 people dead.

“This is a very tragic, shocking incident in which many innocent people became victims,” top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.

Japanese media said that in February Uematsu had delivered a letter to the speaker of Japan’s parliamentary lower house, threatening to attack two care centers including Tsukui Yamayuri- en and kill 470 residents. He said it would launch a “revolution” that would “stimulate the economy and prevent World War III.”

In the letter he presented his vision of a society in which the seriously handicapped could be euthanized with the approval of family members since “handicapped people only create unhappiness.”

The ramblings brought him to the attention of Tokyo police, who informed Sagamihara authorities that he was a potential threat, a city official told AFP.