- Joined
- 18 November 2018
- Messages
- 3,232
- Reactions Received
- 16,942
- Location
- Tokyo, Japan
- KS Coins
- 1,055
- Fandom
- Reveluv
Kawasaki stabbing rampage leaves three dead, including schoolgirl and suspect; 16 injured
YOKOHAMA - A sixth-grade elementary school girl and a man in his 30s died in a mass stabbing in Kawasaki on Tuesday morning in a rampage that injured an additional 16 people — including 15 elementary school girls — and saw the attacker turn the knife on himself, police said.
Investigative sources said they had detained a suspect after the rampage, a man in his 50s, who later died of a self-inflicted stab wound to the area around his neck, they said.
Kanagawa Prefectural Police officials said many of the victims, who were waiting at a school bus stop in Tama Ward near Noborito Station, were students at Caritas Elementary School, a private Catholic school in the same ward, police said.
They said the suspect had attacked the girls with knives in both hands. Authorities had earlier said they found two knives at the site that appeared to have been used in the attack.
“I heard fire engines coming in the morning and I saw a man lying on the ground bleeding,” a man who lives nearby told public broadcaster NHK. “I saw many elementary school children lying on the ground near a school bus stop. School rucksacks were scattered all over the place.
“There was another man lying on the ground bleeding at a municipal-run bus stop near the school’s bus stop,” the man added.
Officials with Caritas Elementary School could not confirm whether the victims were students at the school, saying they were still gathering information.
The rampage was a rare attack in a country with one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world and there was no immediate detail on the motive of the suspect.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who was wrapping up a state visit to Japan, offered his “prayers and sympathy” to the victims as he met troops outside Tokyo on the final day of his state visit to the country.
Standing aboard a Japanese military ship, he said that “all Americans stand with the people of Japan and grieve for the victims and for their families.”
Source: The Japan Times
I am shocked beyond words that something like this has occurred today because you rarely ever see crimes like this in Japan. But it has and this has left me absolutely devastated for the victims, most of whom were elementary aged children.
I can't believe that someone would be disgusting enough to target young children the way that this monster has! And even though attacks such as these are rare it has forced my wife and I to reconsider whether we'll allow our two elementary aged daughters to travel to school by themselves.