Police said they responded to a call around 2:30 am on Tuesday morning from an employee at the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, who said that something bad was taking place, Al Jazeera reported.
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Nine women and 10 men were killed, the fire department was quoted as saying, and they ranged in age from 18 to 70.
A man arrested after 19 people were killed in a knife attack at a centre for disabled people in Japan had reportedly written to parliament, asking for permission to kill.
And in 2008 a man ploughed a rental truck into a crowd of shoppers in Tokyo’s bustling Akihabara district before he stabbed passers-by, killing seven people and injuring 10 others.
The letter, pased to Tokyo police, included Uematsu’s name, address and telephone number, and reports of his threats were relayed to local police where Uematsu lived, Kyodo said.
Nineteen residents are killed in a knife attack in the Japanese city of Sagamihara at a care center for those who have mental handicaps.
Uematsu later turned himself into police in Sagamihara, which is around 25 miles west of Tokyo.
Other reports said he held a grudge after being fired from his job at the facility.
The “Keep Out” tape by police is displayed at the Tsukui Yamayuri En, a care centre at Sagamihara city, Kanagawa prefecture on July 26, 2016.
He was discharged on 2 March after a doctor deemed his condition had improved, the official added.
Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the world and residents of Sagamihara said they were in shock.
Chikara Inabayashi, who lives near the site of Tuesday’s attack, said he was shocked such an outrage had happened in the quiet, semi-rural area near Mount Takao, a mountain popular with hikers.
Uematsu had turned himself in, the Kanagawa prefecture official, identified only by his surname of Sakuma, told an earlier news conference carried on public broadcaster NHK.
“They have been well received and blended in the community, and we were on very friendly terms”, 68-year-old Chikara Inabayashi said, while taking care of watermelons in a family garden.
After that rampage, Japan banned possession of double-edged knives with blades longer than 5.5cm, punishable by up to three years in prison or a ¥500,000 (RM25,320) fine.
Eight children were killed in June 2001 at an Ikeda elementary school in Osaka by a former janitor who entered the school and started to stab children at random.
That was when police arrested Naoko Kikuchi, “a member of the Japanese doomsday cult responsible for the 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway”. He handed the member a letter describing how he “would kill 470 disabled people for Japan” and “hopes for a world where disabled can be euthanized”, NHK reports.
Close Japanese ally the United States quickly offered sympathy.
“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 letter says.
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This post was syndicated from The Guardian NigeriaThe Guardian Nigeria.
