Police in Tokyo have arrested a 52-year-old former police officer on suspicion of assaulting a man who tried to stop him from fleeing from a subway station after he allegedly groped a woman on a train.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 7 a.m. Monday on the Toei Shinjuku Line. Police said the suspect, Masao Shinada, who is now a company employee and a resident of Chiba City, allegedly groped the woman. She yelled at him and called for help after he got off the train at Jimbocho Station in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
A station employee tried to hold onto Shinada but he resisted and started to run away. A man in his 20s saw the commotion and chased after Shinada, catching up with him at the top of a staircase. The two got into an argument and both toppled two meters down the steps. Police said the younger man fractured the right side of his skull and is in a serious condition.
Shinada was restrained by another male commuter on a nearby train platform for the Mita subway line.
Police said Shinada has denied assaulting the man and quoted him as saying he was just trying to shake him loose. He has also denied groping the woman on the train.
Shinada was a former security police officer for Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi. In July 2007, he was arrested on suspicion of groping a female college student aboard a train in Tokyo. At that time, he was sent to the prosecutor's office after he injured a male witness who saw him grope the victim. Although he was released without indictment on both charges of physical and sexual assault, Shinada resigned after being suspended from his security police duties that year.
© Japan Today
16 Comments
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sensei258
Great, a serial groper who has a get-out-of-jail-free card because he is connected.
WilliB
Looks like there a pattern here. Not only a groper, but a violent one. Hope he gets some time to cool off in prison.
ulysses
I hope the injured man pulls through, he did a good deed but got punished in return!!
shogun36
Well, it's happened once, happened now, and will happen again. This should be a surprise to no one if he commits the same acts again. As long as his "boys" are in charge, he'll go free again. Welcome to Japan!
Daryl
Always the police, this is a classic.
Zack
Well done to that 20 year old hero who stopped him on the stairs, I would at least charge him deadly assault crime since he easily avoid punishment for sexual assault
kurisupisu
Are these the people responsible or protecting the Japanese public?
Obviously the courts think so by not handing down the requisite custodial deterrents!
Vince Black
The young man should’ve decked the pervert in the first place. Most, if not all, chikans are weakling cowards who’ve never taken a punch in their life. A quick one to the jaw would stop him from being tough no doubt. Then the “police” can arrest him
mmwkdw
The Young guy, I hope, gets the attention a Hero deserves.
WA4TKG
Guilty, on both accounts
juminRhee
The injured man will likely lose his job because he was in the hospital for so long. I'd like to know if his employer will guarantee him his job in recovery...and hopefully (longshot) pay him during recovery.
oldman_13
This is why you don't try and act the hero when you see gropers, you take a pic or alert authorities.
I sure hope the foreigners coming to the Olympics understand this, they don't need to be acting like heroes either and getting physical with gropers and posting it to social media.
Kazuaki Shimazaki
To be fair, he seems like a relative nobody, and the most likely reason the prosecutor let him go the first time is less because of his connections than the sense that he has been punished reasonably hard, having been all-but-fired (that was not a voluntary resignation and we all know it).
And to be fair to the guy, to say that he "assaulted" the second victim is probably inaccurate. If you are suddenly grabbed, you instinctively want to flee. What happened was more automatism than intent.