Mass killing of disabled stuns Japan
A knife-wielding man broke into a facility for the disabled in a town near Tokyo early yesterday and killed 19 patients as they slept, Japan’s worst mass killing in decades.
At least 25 other residents were wounded in the attack at the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility in Sagamihara town, about 40 kilometres southwest of Tokyo.
‘‘This is a very heart-wrenching and shocking incident in which many innocent people became victims,’’ Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference in Tokyo.
The suspect was a 26-year-old former employee of the facility who gave himself up to police. The man, Satoshi Uematsu, said in letters he wrote in February that he could ‘‘obliterate 470 disabled people‘‘, Kyodo news agency reported.
He said he would kill 260 severely disabled people at two areas in the facility during a night shift, and would not hurt employees.
‘‘My goal is a world in which the severely disabled can be euthanised, with their guardians’ consent, if they are unable to live at home and be active in society,’’ Uematsu wrote in the letters given to the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Kyodo reported.
Uematsu was committed to hos- pital after he expressed a ‘‘willingness to kill severely disabled people‘‘, an official in Sagamihara said. He was freed on March 2 after a doctor deemed he had improved.
Staff at the facility called police at 2.30am local time with reports of a man armed with a knife on the grounds.
The 3-hectare facility was established by the local government. Surrounded by tree-covered mountains and on the banks of the Sagami River, it cares for people with a wide range of disabilities.
The facility’s website said the centre had a maximum capacity of 160 people, including staff.
Residents of Sagamihara said they were in shock. The last mur- der in the area was 10 years ago.
‘‘This is a peaceful, quiet town so I never thought such an incident would happen here,’’ said Oshikazu Shimo, one of many residents of the town who gathered near the facility.
Taxi driver Susumu Fujimura said of the attacker: ‘‘He said ‘we should get rid of disabled people’ but he’s the worthless one.’’
‘‘That kind of person can’t defend themselves,’’ Fujimura said, referring to the victims. ‘‘That’s why so many died. It makes you weep to think of somebody just murdering them.’’
The dead ranged in age from 19 to 70 and comprised nine males and 10 females, Kyodo said.
Police had recovered a bag with several knives, at least one stained with blood, a Kanagawa prefecture official said.
At least 29 emergency squads responded to the attack, with those wounded taken to at least six hospitals in the western Tokyo area.
Such mass killings are extremely rare in Japan and typically involve stabbings. Japan has strict gun laws and possession of firearms by the public is rare.
Eight children were stabbed to death at their school in Osaka by a former janitor in 2001. Seven people died in 2008 when a man drove a truck into a crowd and began stabbing people in Tokyo’s popular electronics and ‘‘anime’’ district of Akihabara.