Murder suspect Satoshi Uematsu wrote in letters he sent to parliamentarians in February that he could “obliterate 470 disabled people”, Reuters said, citing local reports.
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He had previously delivered a letter to the speaker of the lower house of parliament in which he threatened to kill hundreds of disabled people, outlining a broad plan for night-time attacks against Tsukui Yamayuri-en and another facility.
The murder rate in Japan is one of the lowest in the world.
Mass killings are rare in Japan, and Tuesday’s was the deadliest in decades.
Experts say there could have been instances where officials could have prevented the disaster, if authorities had used more caution. Neighbors were shocked to hear of his involvement in the incident.
He then tied up two caregivers before stabbing residents. Some have attributed this to the country’s strict gun control laws. Police said they r. Children are kidnapped from time to time.
In return for his actions, he wanted to serve two years behind bars before being freed on the grounds of insanity, followed by a new name, government protection and “financial aid” of 500 million yen (£3.6 million). Just under a third of those living at the facility are elderly.
Tatsuhisa Hirosue, an official in the Kanagawa prefecture welfare division, said that the surviving staff, “were working at night and were questioned by police after witnessing graphic violence, which has made them a little emotionally unstable”.
When Japanese experience depression, doctors say, they prefer to imagine something is wrong with their character rather than their heads, and a cultural impulse known as “gaman, ” or the will to endure, takes precedence over medical care.
“There was no reason or benefit to this”, said 82-year-old Yukiko Inoue. This area is a very peaceful neighborhood.
The facility cared for people with a wide range of disabilities – both for short term respite and long term residential care for those with the most severe disabilities. Takeshi Koyanagi, a professor at the International Victimology Institute at Tokiwa University in Mito, warned of possible copycat attacks.
A knife-wielding man killed at least 19 people and injured 26 others, 20 of them seriously, after he went on a stabbing rampage at a residential care facility for the disabled in Kanagawa Prefecture west of Tokyo early Tuesday. He reportedly also said: “The disabled should all disappear”.
Uematsu was involuntarily committed to hospital after he expressed a “willingness to kill severely disabled people”, an official in Sagamihara said.
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Police investigators check the Tsukui Yamayuri-en, a facility for the mentally disabled where a number of people were killed and dozens injured in a knife attack in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo Tuesday, July 26, 2016.
