(Tokyo) Japanese police on Friday arrested a maniac suspected of killing four people, including two policemen, in a knife and gun attack in Nakano, a semi-rural area of Nagano Prefecture ( center).
The man, a 31-year-old farmer, is suspected of first fatally stabbing a woman with a long knife in the countryside on Thursday afternoon.
He then allegedly killed two police officers who arrived on the scene with a shotgun, before taking refuge in a large house nearby which would belong to his father, a Nakano municipal councilor, according to local media. Sporadic gunfire was heard overnight.
Two women, including the suspect’s mother, were able to escape unharmed from the house surrounded by law enforcement, one around 8:35 p.m. Thursday (7:35 a.m. EST) and the another after midnight.
Another woman who had been injured without help being able to intervene died, bringing the death toll to four.
The motive of the alleged killer remains unknown at this time. “He grew grapes, he was a calm person. I really don’t know why he did such a thing,” a neighbor told Japanese state broadcaster NHK.
He was arrested around 4:30 a.m. on Friday (Thursday 3:30 p.m. EST), a local police spokesman told AFP. He was later taken into custody for murder.
“We pray for the souls of those who died and we express our sincere condolences to the bereaved families,” government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said Friday during a regular press briefing.
“A police investigation is underway to shed light on this case, including its history and background,” Matsuno added.
“Because I wanted to”
“I was working on a farm when just after 4 p.m. (Thursday, editor’s note), a woman came running from the road saying “help me” and then she fell, “said a 72-year-old witness to the chain. NHK.
“Behind her was a man in camouflage with a long knife, who stabbed her in the back,” added this witness, who said he then called for help, while neighbors tried in vain to revive the victim on the ground.
“I killed her because I wanted to,” said the alleged murderer, according to a witness quoted by the Kyodo agency.
Shortly after, the suspect allegedly attacked two police officers who had just arrived at the scene, apparently with a shotgun. The police were inside their vehicle, and the maniac would have placed his weapon against a window and fired twice, according to NHK.
The inhabitants of the surroundings, a usually very peaceful area with rice fields and agricultural greenhouses, had been called by the local authorities to confine themselves.
Murders are rare in Japan, where the carrying of firearms is highly regulated. In 2022, only four people had been killed by bullets in this country of 125 million inhabitants.
But Japan was rocked last year by the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, killed with a homemade firearm while delivering an election speech in Nara, in the west of the country.
And last month, a young man was arrested after throwing an improvised explosive device at the incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was traveling to a small fishing port in the department of Wakayama (west). Mr. Kishida escaped unscathed.