Police investigators walk at Tsukui Yamayuri-en, a facility for the handicapped where a number of people were killed and dozens injured in a knife attack in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo Tuesday, July 26, 2016.
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A small town near Tokyo, Japan was left reeling after a man stabbed and killed 19 people, and injured at least 25 others, at a facility for disabled people – the deadliest killing in the country since the end of World War II.
He said, “The rumor in the neighborhood was that Uematsu quit his job after it was found out that he had tattoos”.
“This is unbelievable”, the 73-year-old told AFP, adding that Uematsu lived in the house with his parents until they moved out four or five years ago.
It was among the worst attacks in modern Japanese history and left people wondering why their country was suddenly cursed with the kind of mass violence that has swept the globe this year, from the U.S.to France to Afghanistan.
An official from Kanagawa prefecture, which takes in Sagamihara, identified the suspect and said he had turned up at the police station with the murder weapons. Local reports said the man who carried out the attack had dyed blond hair.
Police said there were several casualties but did not provide any numbers.
The 3-hectare (7.6 acre) facility, established by the local government and nestled on the wooded bank of the Sagami River, cares for people with a wide range of disabilities, NHK said, quoting an unidentified employee.
After the attack, Uematsu drove himself to the local police station, where he turned himself in.
Hospital staff talking to the media said the death toll was likely to rise as many of those injured sustained life threatening injuries.
A police auto patrols at night in front of the Tsukui Yamayuri-en, a facility for the mentally disables where a number of people were killed and dozens injured in a knife attack in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo Tuesday, July 26, 2016. “I’m speechless. I don’t know what to say”.
“I am able to kill a total of 470 disabled people”, part of the contents of his letter read. At least one media report said Uematsu had called for euthanasia of the severely disabled.
Kanagawa Governor Yuji Kuroiwa, for his part, offered his “sincere apologies and condolences” to the victims on Tuesday and said that his prefectural government would do its utmost to ensure that such a tragedy doesnt happen again.
“He was just an ordinary young fellow”, he said.
“Accomplishing his goal was all he wanted”, Deguchi said on TV Asahi. Japan, unlike many other modern societies, has largely been spared the mass killings that have hit other countries in recent years.
“It highlights the need for an early-intervention system in the Japanese mental health system”.
Amid a remarkable wave of mass killings around the globe, an event in Japan stands out. Another knife attack killed eight children at an elementary school in Osaka in 2001.
A USA government statement issued by the White House expressed shock at the “heinous attack” and offered condolences to the families of those killed in the knife attack at a facility for the handicapped in Japan. In 2008, a man rammed a truck into pedestrians in the popular Akihabara electronics district, then began stabbing people with a knife; seven people died in that incident.
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Kageyama reported from Tokyo.
