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Japanese killer wrote of stabbing spree on Internet: police
This is something that interests me. If, god forbid, one of our members announced on line they were going to go on a rampage in the manner this person did, should we inform the police?
TOKYO (AFP) — A disturbed young auto worker who killed seven people on a stabbing frenzy in downtown Tokyo had posted dozens of warnings of what he was going to do on Internet bulletin boards, police said Monday.
As stunned mourners placed flowers, sweets and comic-book images at a makeshift shrine, new details emerged of how he kept a detailed log of his plans to wreak havoc in Akihabara , the hub of Tokyo's comic-book subculture.
The assailant behind Japan's deadliest crime in seven years, 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, is a graduate of a prestigious high school who went on to do manual work at an auto components factory, reports said.
On Sunday, he drove a rented two-tonne truck some 100 kilometres (60 miles) to Tokyo, swerving the vehicle into pedestrians before bursting out and stabbing at random with a survival knife.
He wounded 17 people, seven of whom died, before police forced him to drop his weapon at gunpoint and overpowered him.
Clad in a black T-shirt under his beige suit, he told police he was "tired of living" and simply wanted to kill.
The bespectacled Kato reportedly had an interest in comic-book and video-game subculture.
He admitted to police that he had documented his deadly journey on Internet bulletin boards, apparently typing messages on his mobile telephone from behind the wheel of the truck, a police spokesman said.
"I'll crash my vehicle into people and if the vehicle becomes useless, I'll get out a knife. Goodbye everyone!" said one posting hours before the crime, as quoted by Japanese media.
Reports said he made some 30 anonymous postings on various sites before the crime, including one on May 27 entitled "A disaster in Akihabara," warning that an incident would take place imminently.
Kato also reflected on his inability to make friends, noting wryly, "I'm still on an email mailing list. I'm a bit happy about that."
"Getting arrested in the middle of this would suck," he also wrote.
The son of a banker, Kato grew up in northern Aomori prefecture where he graduated from the top high school and played tennis, newspapers said.
But he failed university entrance examinations and eventually trained as an auto mechanic, newspapers said.
Police Monday raided his small apartment in Susano, a town in central Shizuoka prefecture near Mount Fuji where Kato had worked since November at the factory after being dispatched by a temping agency.
"We've been told that his attitude at work was very good and that he didn't stir any problems in the workplace," said Naoyuki Hashimoto, a spokesman for the company, Kanto Auto Works.
Japan prides itself on its public safety and has not seen such a deadly crime since a former mental patient stabbed to death eight children at an elementary school. That came seven years to the day before Sunday's horror.
Chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said officials would study whether laws could be tightened on possession of knives. Japan strictly controls firearms.
"People say that public morality and relations between people are declining," Machmiura said. "But I don't think we can explain this case only by that."
Around the crime scene, rain had washed away the blood stains from the streets of the neon-lit electronics district, where residents placed flowers and pressed their hands together in prayer at a makeshift shrine.
In Japanese tradition, mourners left offerings including sweets, coffee, beer and -- in a twist befitting Akihabara -- comic-book images of action heroes.
"I left coffee because I think that some of the victims will need coffee in the morning," said Ukyo Murakami, a 14-year-old boy on his way to school.
"I'm afraid he did this because he played video games. But he should have known that in life, you can't hit the restart button."
Businesswoman Tomoko Iizuka, 58, sobbed as she paid her respects with a bouquet of flowers. "The victims included young people with a bright future. Why did he do such a crazy thing?" she said.
"It's all his fault. He deserves the death penalty."
Kazuki Homna, a university student, said he was a close friend of one of the victims, 21-year-old Mai Muto, with whom he spent time in San Francisco on a school exchange programme.
"She died not because of illness but because of a cruel tragedy," he said after placing flowers.
The US expressed sympathy Monday for those affected by the killings, with State Department spokesman Sean McCormack calling it "a personal tragedy for the friends and families of the victims involved as well as, I'm sure, for the family of this person who committed these acts."
As stunned mourners placed flowers, sweets and comic-book images at a makeshift shrine, new details emerged of how he kept a detailed log of his plans to wreak havoc in Akihabara , the hub of Tokyo's comic-book subculture.
The assailant behind Japan's deadliest crime in seven years, 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, is a graduate of a prestigious high school who went on to do manual work at an auto components factory, reports said.
On Sunday, he drove a rented two-tonne truck some 100 kilometres (60 miles) to Tokyo, swerving the vehicle into pedestrians before bursting out and stabbing at random with a survival knife.
He wounded 17 people, seven of whom died, before police forced him to drop his weapon at gunpoint and overpowered him.
Clad in a black T-shirt under his beige suit, he told police he was "tired of living" and simply wanted to kill.
The bespectacled Kato reportedly had an interest in comic-book and video-game subculture.
He admitted to police that he had documented his deadly journey on Internet bulletin boards, apparently typing messages on his mobile telephone from behind the wheel of the truck, a police spokesman said.
"I'll crash my vehicle into people and if the vehicle becomes useless, I'll get out a knife. Goodbye everyone!" said one posting hours before the crime, as quoted by Japanese media.
Reports said he made some 30 anonymous postings on various sites before the crime, including one on May 27 entitled "A disaster in Akihabara," warning that an incident would take place imminently.
Kato also reflected on his inability to make friends, noting wryly, "I'm still on an email mailing list. I'm a bit happy about that."
"Getting arrested in the middle of this would suck," he also wrote.
The son of a banker, Kato grew up in northern Aomori prefecture where he graduated from the top high school and played tennis, newspapers said.
But he failed university entrance examinations and eventually trained as an auto mechanic, newspapers said.
Police Monday raided his small apartment in Susano, a town in central Shizuoka prefecture near Mount Fuji where Kato had worked since November at the factory after being dispatched by a temping agency.
"We've been told that his attitude at work was very good and that he didn't stir any problems in the workplace," said Naoyuki Hashimoto, a spokesman for the company, Kanto Auto Works.
Japan prides itself on its public safety and has not seen such a deadly crime since a former mental patient stabbed to death eight children at an elementary school. That came seven years to the day before Sunday's horror.
Chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said officials would study whether laws could be tightened on possession of knives. Japan strictly controls firearms.
"People say that public morality and relations between people are declining," Machmiura said. "But I don't think we can explain this case only by that."
Around the crime scene, rain had washed away the blood stains from the streets of the neon-lit electronics district, where residents placed flowers and pressed their hands together in prayer at a makeshift shrine.
In Japanese tradition, mourners left offerings including sweets, coffee, beer and -- in a twist befitting Akihabara -- comic-book images of action heroes.
"I left coffee because I think that some of the victims will need coffee in the morning," said Ukyo Murakami, a 14-year-old boy on his way to school.
"I'm afraid he did this because he played video games. But he should have known that in life, you can't hit the restart button."
Businesswoman Tomoko Iizuka, 58, sobbed as she paid her respects with a bouquet of flowers. "The victims included young people with a bright future. Why did he do such a crazy thing?" she said.
"It's all his fault. He deserves the death penalty."
Kazuki Homna, a university student, said he was a close friend of one of the victims, 21-year-old Mai Muto, with whom he spent time in San Francisco on a school exchange programme.
"She died not because of illness but because of a cruel tragedy," he said after placing flowers.
The US expressed sympathy Monday for those affected by the killings, with State Department spokesman Sean McCormack calling it "a personal tragedy for the friends and families of the victims involved as well as, I'm sure, for the family of this person who committed these acts."
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