crime

Teacher arrested for putting bleach in school lunch

42 Comments

Police in Fujimi, Saitama Prefecture, have arrested a 24-year-old elementary school teacher on suspicion of forcible disruption of business after she placed bleach in curry to be served to the children for lunch.

According to police, Ayana Hanzawa has admitted to placing the bleach in a container of curry at around 11:30 a.m. on Sept 15 at Mizutani-Higashi Elementary School, Kyodo News reported. Several of the children noticed an odd smell coming from the curry and told another teacher.

Nobody ate the curry which was sent for analysis. The result showed it contained chlorine bleach.

Hanzawa, who has taught at the school since 2020, was quoted by police as saying she got upset because she was transferred to be the homeroom teacher for another class in April, despite wanting to remain with her previous class. The curry she laced was meant to be served for the children in her new class, school officials said.

Police said Hanzawa told them she bought the bleach at a nearby pharmacy.

© Japan Today

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

42 Comments
Login to comment

she was transferred to be the homeroom teacher for another class in April, despite wanting to remain with her previous class.

So blame the school administrators, not the children. Hopefully a person with this kind of mind state is kept far away from any school.

20 ( +23 / -3 )

Daaaayyymmm! System done cracked her. Hard core crazy.

20 ( +23 / -3 )

I do not understand. Souldn't the hate directed to the staff rather than the children? If the children can smell the bleach from the curry, I believe there is enough bleach inside the curry that can poison a human to death.

15 ( +19 / -4 )

I hope she rots behind bars.

18 ( +21 / -3 )

Jeez! depending on how much she put that could have been disastrous!!

LOCK HER UP!!

7 ( +11 / -4 )

So instead of filling a complaint with the school board, she decided to attempt to poison a bunch of innocent kids instead? Lady's got a screw loose; lock her up and get her a shrink.

9 ( +14 / -5 )

Total nut job.

11 ( +14 / -3 )

Luckily the kids didn’t eat it. This psycho could have poisoned 40 odd kids.

8 ( +11 / -3 )

Elementary school teachers and the students usually stay together from first grade to sixth grade. The point is to create a strong bond (group mentality). That can have some strange psychological affects on all the parties involved.

She must really like her old class or really hate the new class.

-10 ( +2 / -12 )

She will get a warning and allowed to quit, so she can work at another school. She will still lose her previous class. Teacher offenses in Japan gets handled like police offenses in the US generally.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Wtaf??? Life in prison. Sick psycho

7 ( +11 / -4 )

Japan is putting radiation into the sea affecting millions of citizens, but for financial reasons. She did for petty spite, so lock her up.

-1 ( +7 / -8 )

Put the filthy scum in a loony bin and throw away the key. Not fit to live in society.

Just lucky none of those kids ate the curry and burned their insides. What happened to the supposed rule that the principal eats lunch first to test it?

6 ( +9 / -3 )

And the stressed out nut bar of the day prize goes to......

3 ( +6 / -3 )

This woman teacher could Kill Many children. She should be arrested and sent to a hospital prison for As Long As It Takes to cure her sick mind.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Self entitled spoilt brat! She should be locked up for a long time! Lucky the kids were smart enough to inform other teachers!

2 ( +6 / -4 )

One man's disruption of business is another man's attempted mass murder

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Really fortunate the teacher used something terribly easy to find before eating and that is not so toxic that would put in danger the life of the children from one taste. Now her mental problems have been discovered and hopefully punished before any child was hurt.

3 ( +8 / -5 )

Attempted murder.

8 ( +12 / -4 )

Sadly, she will probably be teaching again in 2 years time in another Prefecture.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

So what does she think the outcome of her tantrum will be?

1 ( +4 / -3 )

have arrested a 24-year-old elementary school teacher on suspicion of forcible disruption of business

Isn’t feeding bleach to children far more serious than “forcible disruption of business”? The must be a more serious crime they could charge her with. Kids could’ve died…

1 ( +3 / -2 )

I'm so glad the children thought to tell a teacher! What an absolute nut case! She tried to inflict a very dangerous punishment on the children themselves, rather than the admin who changed her job role! What twisted logic in her brain led her to that conclusion???

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Elementary school teachers and the students usually stay together from first grade to sixth grade

No, they don’t. In fact most teachers don’t spend six years in one elementary school. Also, for example, the third grade teacher often teaches second grade the next year. In some schools, the third grade teacher teaches third grade forever.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Her arrest on suspicion of forcible disruption of business is just a convenient charge to hold her whilst other, hopefully much more serious, charges are being considered. Same when killers are first charged with abandoning a body in order to hold them until further charges are decided upon.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Crazy, evil, whatever. Keep her away from children.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Alarming. Glad the kids smelled something wrong and did not eat the food.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

In a previous report in JT (11Sep22):

"Japan reports record high 207,000 child abuse cases in FY2021" [11Sep22]

I commented:

"As [....] is said to 'roll downhill' so, too, the behavioral acting out of desperation rolls down upon the weakest who are, of course, the children."

Case in point. There was more happening in this woman than just frustration with a reassignment...

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

What I will take away from this news story is: Don't eat food that smells "off".

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

LOCK HER UP! The kids are smarter lol than the teacher!

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Isn't it supposed to be mandatory for the school principal or someone to taste test the children's lunch before it's served to the children ?

Read the article! Common sense should be able to answer your question.

A principal, or his delegated "other" will eat or "test" the lunch from the teacher's room allocation of the school lunch. Not every single class!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I don't like the way schools rotate their teachers either (often not telling them until a week to the night before doing so), but you don't blame it on the kids, and you certainly don't try to poison people.

This is what happens when your sole criteria for becoming a teacher is to pass rote memory tests.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Feed her bleach every day in prison.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Elementary school teachers and the students usually stay together from first grade to sixth grade. The point is to create a strong bond (group mentality). That can have some strange psychological affects on all the parties involved.

She must really like her old class or really hate the new class.

I've had some pretty rotten classes in my life, but never rotten enough to poison a school lunch. This is nuts!

I don't like the way schools rotate their teachers either 

I agree. Admin often like to "surprise" teachers one or two weeks before the March/April break in Japan and if you are sent up or down a grade, that means having to learn and prepare a whole new grade level of material in a few weeks. It can frustrate a lot of teachers, especially if they had a bad relationship with a group of students and they have to teach them again and again. Students often bully teachers, especially new ones. As a student, I always preferred to have a new teacher every year and as a teacher, I preferred to have a new group of students that I didn't know. The "strong bond" is a myth.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Bleach is toxic,we get enough in home drinking water,still do not mean it good for us,this is used for sterilization

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Bet there was a plethora of signals coming from this lady on the edge. An easy spot for all around her, but well it’s Japan, so no one did a thing. Pure chance that it wasn’t another huge disaster of inaction.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites