Stabbing Spree Leaves at Least 7 Dead in Tokyo
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
TOKYO — A man launched a knife attack that left at least seven people dead in Tokyo yesterday after he drove a lorry into a crowd of shoppers.
Twelve other people were injured in the Akihabara district, a popular electronics shopping center, before the attacker was arrested.
A police spokesman said the man, named as 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, told police that he had planned the attack. Police said that Kato had told them: “I came to Akihabara to kill people. I am tired of the world. It was okay for me to kill anyone. I came here alone.”
The violence began when a rented, two-ton lorry was crashed into pedestrians on an intersection close to Akihabara train station.
The driver jumped out of his cab, stabbing those already injured with a large survival knife.
He then began flailing at horrified and screaming onlookers, grunting and roaring in his frenzy. “He was screaming as he was stabbing people at random,” a witness said.
Backpacks, umbrellas, and items of clothing were strewn across the roads, many abandoned by people fleeing Kato’s assault. Kato was struck several times with a baton by a police officer — to little effect — and was eventually subdued when the officer drew his gun.
The attack fell on the seventh anniversary of the most notorious knife attack in recent Japanese history, in which Mamoru Takuma entered the grounds of Ikeda Elementary School in Osaka and stabbed to death seven boys and one girl between the ages of 6 and 8.
A further 13 students and two teachers were injured in the attack.
Takuma had a history of mental illness and refused to apologize to the families of the victims. Instead, he told the court: “I should have used gasoline so I could have killed more than I did.”
He was executed in September 2004, but several killers since Takuma’s attack have described him as being “charismatic” and a role model.
The killings are the latest in a series of attacks in Japan. In March, one person was stabbed to death and at least seven others were hurt by a man armed with two knives who attacked people at a shopping center in eastern Japan.
