6 Dead in Akihabara Killing Spree

tsukaesugi

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Another random killing spree has occurred, this time in Akihabara. Just saw a live report on the TV now.

A 25-year-old man plowed a truck into a street closed off for pedestrians, then got out and started attacking people with a survival knife before he was finally tackled by the police.

6 dead, 10 injured.

Hope everyone else living in / visiting Tokyo is OK.
 

abasuto

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Was it one of those survival knifes that has the compass on the back of the handle ? Then you can unscrew that and the handle is hollow and holds fishing wire, hooks, matches, shit like that.

Man, I use to think I was John fucking Rambo with my survival knife like that as a kid.
 

ratson

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That ain't good i plan to go there some time in the near future
 

garou_d

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That ain't good i plan to go there some time in the near future

Tokyo is one of the most safest place in the world so no worries - but yeah this sucks, apparently 7 years exactly after the Takuma carnage :oh_no:
 

abasuto

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Detroit is one of the safest places in the world when it comes to a maniac going on a major stabbing spree in an inner city.

Because they'd get shot quick.
 

tsukaesugi

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Here's the English Kyodo News article:

http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=382682

◆ 7 killed, 10 injured in stabbing rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara
TOKYO, June 8 KYODO
Seven people died and 10 others were injured after a man hit pedestrians with a truck and then stabbed people Sunday in broad daylight on a street in Tokyo's busy Akihabara district, a popular electronics area and a magnet for comic and animation fans.

Police arrested the man, 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato from Susono, Shizuoka Prefecture, and seized a survival knife he was carrying. He admitted to stabbing all the people with the knife from around 12:30 p.m., the police said. The truck was rented in Shizuoka Prefecture.

''I came to Akihabara to kill people,'' investigative sources quoted Kato as telling the police. ''I am tired of the world. Anyone was OK. I came alone.''

According to the police and hospital officials, six of the seven who died were males and aged 19, 20, 29, 33, 47 and 74. The other was a 21-year-old female.

In addition to the seven, 11 people who were taken to hospital after the stabbing rampage. Of these, eight men and two women were injured, including a traffic police officer who was patrolling at the time. The remaining male person had sustained no injury but simply had blood on his clothing.

The area was crowded with shoppers as Chuo-dori in the Akihabara district was vehicle-free for pedestrians. The scene was near the intersection of Chuo-dori and Kanda Myojin-dori streets, only a stone's throw from JR Akihabara Station.

A 19-year-old man from Tokyo's Ota Ward said, ''The man (Kato) jumped on top of a man he had hit with his vehicle and stabbed him with a knife many times. Walking toward Akihabara Station, he slashed nearby people at random.''

Shunichi Jingu, a 26-year-old self-employed man from Gunma Prefecture, who witnessed the incident, said, ''It seemed that a traffic accident had happened. Then a man got out of a vehicle and began to brandish a knife.''

Akihabara is a district of Tokyo known for its electronics shops and as a center of modern culture, including ''manga'' comic books and animations, and attracts many visitors from both Japan and abroad.

There were similar street stabbing rampages earlier this year.

In January, a 16-year-old boy attacked five people and injured two of them with kitchen knives on a shopping street in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. A man wanted by police on suspicion of murder stabbed passersby with a knife at an entrance to a shopping mall in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki Prefecture, in March, leaving eight people injured, one of whom died later in hospital.

The Akihabara rampage also occurred on the seventh anniversary of a stabbing spree by a man at Ikeda Elementary School in Osaka Prefecture on June 8, 2001.

The attacker, Mamoru Takuma, was executed for killing eight children and injuring 15 others in that case.
==Kyodo
 
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hanafuda

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Havent been to Akiba for years.

Awful news.
 

Late

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Detroit is one of the safest places in the world when it comes to a maniac going on a major stabbing spree in an inner city.

Because they'd get shot quick.

Nothing is cooler than violent crime
 

Loopz

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Another random killing spree has occurred, this time in Akihabara. Just saw a live report on the TV now.

A 25-year-old man plowed a truck into a street closed off for pedestrians, then got out and started attacking people with a survival knife before he was finally tackled by the police.

6 dead, 10 injured.

Hope everyone else living in / visiting Tokyo is OK.

Dude, the freaky thing was...I ended up visiting Tokyo on super-short notice (long, shitty story)...and was there about an hour before that shit went down.
Fucking crazy. I'm sorry I couldn't meet up for a drink, I didn't think I was going to go and then at the last minute I ended up going with my buddy Kunai for the SFIV loketest.
 

Ghost-Dog

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Wow, I feel terrible about this.

I've only been gone a week..

My wife and I were talking about this before our visit, and we both decided I would go there alone when we were in country. Under no circumstances would I take my daughter there, even in her stroller. I felt it was being on the safe side, if not a little on the paranoid side, but with kids you don't take chances.

Then a week later, this shit goes down. :crying:
 

RBjakeSpecial

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Nobu and I are OK, we weren't in Akiba when it happened.

I hope all of my friends are safe.
 

aria

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I figured this has already been posted. The dork I am, I wanted to title the thread "Grand Theft Akihabara" since I've probably acted out this scenario in at least one GTA game.

With that said, I would feel completely safe going to any major neighborhood in Tokyo tomorrow. Yeah, when the Japanese decide to go nuts, it can be a bit dramatic; but this incident wasn't all too different than the college kid who decided to take out a crowd of kids at UC Santa Barbara a while back (he plowed his car into a crowd, killing a number of them, then jumped out of the car yelling "I am the angel of death!" --it pays to have rich parents because he got off with being "crazy"). Bottom line: people go crazy and do stupid shit on a regular basis. The only way to avoid it is to withdraw from where people hang out.

EDIT: link to the UCSB Angel of Death
 

Lovergoat

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I know somebody who's on business trip there right now. Hopefully I'll hear from her soon and all will be well again. I'm pretty concerned though having not heard anything yet.
 

Kunai

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Yeah, Loopz and I are very fortunate that we left before that happened. Violent crime is fucked up no matter where it happens or who it happens to.

I kinda joked a little about it when I was talking with some friends and Loopz about it later on, but I kinda realize that I shouldn't joke about stuff like this. I feel bad for the families and friends of the people involved, not to mention the injured and the dead themselves.
 
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norton9478

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Wow, I feel terrible about this.

I've only been gone a week..

My wife and I were talking about this before our visit, and we both decided I would go there alone when we were in country. Under no circumstances would I take my daughter there, even in her stroller. I felt it was being on the safe side, if not a little on the paranoid side, but with kids you don't take chances.

Then a week later, this shit goes down. :crying:

So what is it about this district that weirds you out so much?
 

KagerouSama

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Local news in the US, NPR and Fox included, are reporting 7 dead and 10 wounded.

Still tragic either way. And a darned sad thing at that.

But are there now 7 dead confirmed in Japanese reports?

Geesh...
What posses a person to go on such a rampage?
 

tsukaesugi

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Dude, the freaky thing was...I ended up visiting Tokyo on super-short notice (long, shitty story)...and was there about an hour before that shit went down.

Fucking crazy. I'm sorry I couldn't meet up for a drink, I didn't think I was going to go and then at the last minute I ended up going with my buddy Kunai for the SFIV loketest.

I read in one of the SF threads that you & Kunai were going to go to the loketest after all. I was thinking about you guys when I made the thread, and hoping that either the test wasn't going to be in Akihabara, or that you weren't there when the incident happened.

Don't worry about not being able to hook up, I'm just glad to hear you guys are ok.

It's freaky for me as well, because I did go to Akihabara a lot in the past, especially on Sundays. Yesterday was nice weather too, so I can imagine that there were a lot of people out there shopping.

Nobu and I are OK, we weren't in Akiba when it happened.

I hope all of my friends are safe.

I was very relieved to get you email last night, and it's good to hear that XJ wasn't there at the time either. Even just being there at the time would be immensely traumatic.
 

tsukaesugi

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But are there now 7 dead confirmed in Japanese reports?

Yeah, it's 7 dead now. One person died in the hospital.

Geesh...
What posses a person to go on such a rampage?

The people who commit these crimes (in Japan anyway) seem to be very lonely people with very low self esteem and little or no social skills. Kind of like the "geeks of the geek world". They're so socially incompetent that even other "geeks" don't want to associate with them. They're also so disconnected with reality that they believe randomly killing people will help them "get revenge" on the society that's rejected them.

Even more unfortunately, this particular incident may have also been inspired by a similar stabbing spree that took place in January.
 

norton9478

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Yeah, it's 7 dead now. One person died in the hospital.



The people who commit these crimes (in Japan anyway) seem to be very lonely people with very low self esteem and little or no social skills. Kind of like the "geeks of the geek world". They're so socially incompetent that even other "geeks" don't want to associate with them. They're also so disconnected with reality that they believe randomly killing people will help them "get revenge" on the society that's rejected them.

Even more unfortunately, this particular incident may have also been inspired by a similar stabbing spree that took place in January.

I like the Suicide sprees better...

The one where thy mix amonia and chlorine or some shit.
 

Ghost-Dog

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So what is it about this district that weirds you out so much?

It could be that a lot of strange people hang out there? It's gotten progressively more strange over the last few years too. First it was just maid cafes, now it's tons of off the wall porn. On my 2k5 trip I wandered into the wrong floor of a particular store and they had anime porn with little kids in it. Fucking disgusting.

It seems like there was more porn this time around, but I guess I'm probably not the best judge, being an infrequent visitor and all.

So besides that, I just figured if someone in the area was going to go on a stabbing spree, they would chose Akihabara to do it. Turns out I was right, after the fact.
 

Dr Shroom

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Yeah, it's 7 dead now. One person died in the hospital.



The people who commit these crimes (in Japan anyway) seem to be very lonely people with very low self esteem and little or no social skills. Kind of like the "geeks of the geek world". They're so socially incompetent that even other "geeks" don't want to associate with them. They're also so disconnected with reality that they believe randomly killing people will help them "get revenge" on the society that's rejected them.

Like those Hikikomoris? (yes, I know that this topic goes a bit deeper)
 
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tsukaesugi

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Like those Hikikomoris? (yes, I know that this topic goes a bit deeper)

That's a good observation. I'd say "yes and no".

"Yes" in the sense that both hikikomori and the perpetrators of these crimes have withdrawn from conventional society.

"No" in the sense that many of the hikikomori at least have a social network of peers online, whereas the young man in this incident and the young man in the January incident probably had nobody at all.
 

tsukaesugi

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So besides that, I just figured if someone in the area was going to go on a stabbing spree, they would chose Akihabara to do it. Turns out I was right, after the fact.

Good call.

I never actually thought Akihabara was dangerous, I always thought it was on the harmless side of geeky. Some of the stores that specialize in hentai are pretty lame, and the customers are pathetic, but for the most part Akihabara is just plain geeky.

But in retrospect, there are a lot of strange people wandering around there.

I'm guessing that this particular incident happened because:

a) the killer wanted to attack otaku in particular

b) the killer is an otaku, and Akihabara is the only part of Tokyo he's familiar with (the killer is from Shizuoka BTW)

or c) both
 

Lets Gekiga In

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I'm glad to hear that Loopz and Kunai are ok.

I also feel sorry for the families involved in the incident.
 

Loopz

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Kunai checked the timestamp on his RR7 receipt from yesterday...literally, we were actually down the fucking block when this occurred, not about an hour later as we theorized yesterday. Scary shit. Of course, as Bobak said, just about anywhere in Japan is safer than the average place in the US, but its still pretty creepy to have been so close to something like that.

You really cannot control when someone decides to crack, you can only gauge the odds of a given place, or give up on humanity altogether and be a hermit.

Yeah, we joked a bit, but it was more to let some of the shock off, because of all the places I expected to hear of something like that happening, this wasn't it.

If the worst thing that happened to me yesterday was seeing the physical evidence of some poor bastard otaku's spunk parade on the floor of the stall I was in, all's well.
 
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