Japan knife attack: 19 killed
SAGAMIHARA—Hatred appears to be what fueled a young Japanese man who went on a stabbing rampage, killing 19 people on Tuesday at a facility for the mentally disabled where he had been fired.
Months earlier, he reportedly gave a letter to parliament outlining the bloody plan.
When he was done, Satoshi Uematsu, 26, had left dead or injured nearly a third of the almost 150 patients at the facility in a matter of 40 minutes in the early Tuesday attack, the deadliest mass killing in Japan in decades.
Twenty-five were wounded, 20 of them seriously.
Break-in
Uematsu drove up in a black car, carrying several knives to the Tsukui Yamayuri-en facility in Sagamihara, 50 kilometers west of Tokyo. He broke in by shattering a window at 2:10 a.m., and then set about slashing the patients’ throats.
Uematsu calmly turned himself in about two hours after the attack, police said.
Tsukui Yamayuri-en, which means mountain lily garden, was a facility Uematsu knew well, having worked there since 2012 until he was let go in February.
Not much is known yet about his background, but Uematsu once dreamed of becoming a teacher. But somewhere along the way, things went terribly awry.
Uematsu began to tell people around him that disabled people needed to be killed.
Letter to parliament
In February, he delivered a letter to parliament demanding all disabled people be put to death through “a world that allows for mercy killing,” Kyodo news agency reported.
Uematsu boasted in the letter that he had the ability to kill 470 disabled people in what he called was “a revolution,” and outlined an attack on two facilities, after which he said he would turn himself in.
He also asked he be judged innocent on grounds of insanity, be given 500 million yen ($5 million) in aid and plastic surgery so he could lead a normal life afterward.
“My reasoning is that I may be able to revitalize the world economy and I thought it may be possible to prevent World War III,” the rambling letter says.
Apology
Kanagawa Gov. Yuji Kuroiwa apologized for having failed to act on the warning signs.
Michael Gillan Peckitt, a lecturer in clinical philosophy at Osaka University and an expert on disabled people’s issues in Japan, said the attack spoke more about Uematsu than the treatment of the disabled in Japan.