(News) — The suspect in the shooting and stabbing that left four dead in Japan is already in police custody, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported early Friday, citing local police.
Nakano city police received a call on Thursday that a “man had stabbed a woman,” a municipal police official told News.
When officers rushed to the scene, the suspect fired something resembling a hunting rifle, wounding four people, before barricading himself in a building, the official added.
Among the fatalities is a woman in her 40s, who was taken to hospital, where she was later pronounced dead. Two police officers have also died from her injuries, NHK reported. The officers were 46 and 61 years old, according to police.
A fourth person died on Friday, police reported to the Japanese public broadcaster NHK.
Citing sources in the investigation, NHK said the Nagano police requested the Metropolitan Police Department to send a “special investigation team” specializing in dealing with barricade incidents to the scene.
An elderly woman was found unconscious outside the house where the suspect had barricaded himself. She was later declared dead, local police reported to NHK.
A spokesperson for the Nakano city police told News that they have arrested Masanori Aoki, a 31-year-old farmer, suspected of killing a 61-year-old police officer by shooting him in the chest with what appears to be a hunting rifle. .
Police are investigating the possible motive and how he got the gun, the spokesman said.
Earlier, the Nakano City Police told NHK that the suspect had barricaded himself in a house belonging to Nakano Municipal Council Chairman Masamichi Aoki, who is believed to be the suspect’s father.
According to NHK, a witness to the attack said he saw a woman running towards him, pleading for help, followed by a masked man wearing camouflage.
The man, who appeared to be in his 30s and was wielding a knife several tens of centimeters long, stabbed her in the back, NHK reported.
The city of Nakano urged citizens to stay at home in a statement posted on social media, and the municipal police spokesman told News that authorities had designated an “evacuation zone” with a radius of 300 meters around. from the place of the incident.
An evacuation center was later opened in the gymnasium of a Nakano City middle school, according to a spokesman for the Nakano City Crisis Management Division. Local authorities are providing shelter, blankets, food and drinks to some 60 people who have been evacuated there.
Gun violence is extremely rare in Japan, a country of 125 million people. It has one of the lowest gun crime rates in the world due to its extremely strict gun control laws.
However, Japan was rocked last year by a shooting that reverberated around the world.
Shinzo Abe, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, was killed in a gunfight during a campaign speech in Nara in July.
His assassination shocked Japan and the international community, and also raised questions about whether there were enough security measures in place to protect him, despite the fact that Japan is a safe place.
Obtaining a firearm in Japan is extremely difficult and the suspect in the Abe shooting used a homemade weapon.
In 2022, there were nine firearms incidents in Japan, including the murder of Abe, one less than the previous year, according to the National Police Agency.
Of the nine incidents, six are believed to have been committed by gangs and other groups. In all, four people died and two were injured in the nine incidents.
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