Knife attack leaves 19 dead in Japan
Former employee goes on rampage in Tokyo-area facility for disabled
SAGAMIHARA, JAPAN— At least 19 people were killed and about 20 injured in a knife attack Tuesday at a facility for the disabled in a city just outside Tokyo in the worst mass killing in generations in Japan.
Police said they responded to a call at about 2:30 a.m. (local time) from an employee saying something horrible was happening at the facility in the city of Sagamihara, 50 kilometres west of Tokyo.
A man turned himself in at a police station about two hours later, police said. He left the knife in his car when he entered the station. He has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and trespassing.
Officials in Kanagawa prefecture, which borders Tokyo, identified the suspect as Satoshi Uematsu, and said he had worked at the facility until February. Japanese media reports said he was 26 years old.
He entered the building about 2:10 a.m. by breaking a glass window on the first floor of a residential building at the facility, Shinya Sakuma, head of prefectural health and welfare division, said at a news conference.
Kanagawa Gov. Yuji Kuroiwa expressed his condolences to the victims.
The Sagamihara City fire department says that 19 people were confirmed dead in the attack.
The death toll could make this the worst mass killing in Japan in the post-Second World War-era.
A woman who lives across from the facility told Japanese broadcaster NHK that she saw police cars enter the facility around 3:30 a.m.
“I was told by a policeman to stay inside my house, as it could be dangerous,” she said. “Then ambulances began arriving, and blood-covered people were taken away.”
Japanese broadcaster NTV report- ed that Uematsu was upset because he had been fired, but that could not be independently confirmed.
The facility, called the Tsukui Yamayuri-en, is home to about 150 adult residents who have mental disabilities, Japan’s Kyodo News Service said.
Mass killings are relatively rare in Japan, which has extremely strict gun-control laws. In 2008, seven people were killed by a man who slammed a truck into a crowd of people in central Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district and then stabbed passersby.
In 2001, a man killed eight children and injured13 others in a knife attack at an elementary school in Osaka. The incident shocked Japan and led to increased security at schools.
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