In Japan, a madman kills four people including two police officers before being arrested

JAPAN – Japanese police on Friday (May 26th) arrested a madman suspected of killing four people, including two policemen, in a knife and gun attack in central Nagano Prefecture, police reported. Japanese media.

The suspect, who had been holed up since Thursday afternoon inside a house with a farm in Nakano (northeast of the city of Nagano), was arrested on Friday around 4:30 a.m. (Thursday 9:30 p.m. Paris time ), a local police spokesman told AFP.

A woman who was injured but could not be rescued succumbed to her injuries, bringing the death toll to four, the spokesperson added.

The suspect is said to be the son of a local elected official from Nakano.

On Thursday afternoon, another woman was stabbed in the back by the suspect, who is said to be in his thirties.

The madman then shot and killed two police officers who had just arrived on the scene, before taking refuge in the house which belonged to his father, who would be a local elected official from Nakano, according to the Kyodo News news agency.

The local police had specified in the night that two women had been able to leave the building before the arrest of the suspect: one around 8:35 p.m. and the other shortly after midnight. One of them was the suspect’s own mother, according to Kyodo.

” Help me “

“I was working on a farm when just after 4 p.m. a woman came running up from the road saying ‘help me’ and then she fell”a witness told the public television channel NHK on Thursday. “Behind her was a man in camouflage with a long knife, who stabbed her in the back”he added.

This 72-year-old witness said he then called the emergency services, and neighbors tried to revive the victim by giving him cardiac massage, in vain.

According to NHK citing the police, the madman then fired a shotgun at police who had just arrived on the scene.

The police were inside their vehicle, and the maniac would have placed his weapon against a window and fired twice, according to NHK.

Voluntary homicides very rare in Japan

The inhabitants of the surrounding area had been called by the local authorities to confine themselves. Voluntary homicides are very rare in Japan, where the carrying of firearms is highly regulated.

But Japan was rocked last year by the murder of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was 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 in the direction of the Prime Minister in office Fumio Kishida, who was making a trip to a small fishing port in the department of Wakayama (west). Mr. Kishida escaped unscathed.

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