NTV reported that the letter Uematsu allegedly wrote calling for euthanasia for disabled people said: “My goal is a world in which, in cases where it is hard for the severely disabled to live at home and be socially active, they can be euthanised with the consent of their guardians”.
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The facility, with its 30,000-square-meter area, can house up to 160 residents and according to local sources as many as 149 residents were on site when the attack happened, many of whom are believed to be in their sixties.
Nineteen people were killed and 25 wounded after an attack by a knife-wielding man at a facility for the disabled in central Japan early on Tuesday, a government official said, in Japan’s worst mass killing in decades. Uematsu’s 19 victims were aged between 19 and 70, Kyodo said, citing the Sagamihara City fire department. Other details were not available.
An ambulance outside the facility for disabled people where at least 19 people have been killed and dozens injured in a knife attack in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo.
On Feb. 19, shortly after Mr. Uematsu quit his job, police detained him in Sagamihara, the city where the home is located, because of his agitation and apparent mental problems, a city official said.
One hearse came out after some time, but it was unclear whether it was carrying the body of a victim of Tuesday’s attack.
When he was done, Kanagawa prefectural authorities said, 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu 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.
“I am able to kill a total of 470 disabled people”, part of the contents of his letter read.
In the same month prior to his hospitalization, he reportedly visited the private residence of a lower house member of parliament and handed a letter to security personnel there outlining his wishes for there to be a “world where the disabled can be euthanized”.
Authorities had multiple alerts that Mr. Uematsu had changed in risky ways. He wrote he would then turn himself in to the police. It demanded that all disabled people be put to death through “a world that allows for mercy killing”, Kyodo news agency and TBS TV reported. This makes it one of the deadliest mass killings of Japan since World War II.
In a brief press conference, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga confirmed that there was no terror link with ISIS. “I sincerely pray for peace for the souls of those killed and extend condolences to the bereaved families as well as those wounded”. “I will carry it out at night time, when there are fewer staff on duty”, he wrote.
Human rights groups however have criticized Japan for not doing more to help refuges and economic analysts say the country needs increased immigration to replace the country’s rapidly aging population. “My daughter knew the culprit, I mean, they were acquainted”. They would greet each other when they would meet and she tells me that he was a very kind person.
But Japan has recently seen an increasing number of cases of attacks on the weak and vulnerable.
Local government officials have identified the suspect in the knife attack as Satoshi Uematsu.
He broke a window to enter the facility and stabbed residents with multiple knives.
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In February, a former nursing home worker was arrested for allegedly throwing an 87-year-old resident from a balcony to his death.
