A 33-year-old man was arrested early Monday morning after he went on a random stabbing spree, injuring three people, in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, police said.
The incident occurred just before 2 a.m. in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Utsunomiya’s Shimokawamatamachi area, Fuji TV reported. Police said the suspect, identified as Takuya Kawanago, suddenly stabbed a 56-year-old truck driver, who had just arrived at the store to deliver commodities. Kawanago then stabbed two other people, a 54-year-old woman and her 22-year-old daughter, who was a part-time worker at the convenience store.
The three victims' injuries are not life-threatening, police said.
The truck driver managed to subdue Kawanago until police arrived.
According to police, Kawanago and the three victims have apparently never met before.
Kawanago was quoted by police as saying he “was drunk and has no recollection of the incident,” Fuji TV reported.
© Japan Today
27 Comments
Login to comment
tes tes
Nice job on the truck driver after being stabbed still managed to stop the idiot. The women may have died if it wasn't for his intervention!
sillygirl
Getting tired of that over used excuse.
khulifi
Kawanago was quoted by police as saying he “was drunk and has no recollection of the incident,”
Cleared now ...
pudus
"in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture,"
"33-year-old" "saying he “was drunk and has no recollection of the incident,”
the recycled excuse
Monozuki
My hats off to the truck driver who fought back dauntlessly despite being injured and managed to subdue the stranger danger.
Citizen2012
You can't really say Japan is safer than any other country, you can get stabbed for nothing just by going to a convenient store.
SenseNotSoCommon
“I was drunk and have no recollection of the incident:” top answer in the multiple choice charge sheet!
savethegaijin
Little early for the random stabbings no? Usually they wait until it's at least 30 degrees outside.
Peter Qinghai
Copy Cat Crime?
nath
Sure you can - because the numbers show its safer than almost every other country.
That can happen anywhere in the world at any time. We essentially live in a state of controlled anarchy. The police can only respond after an incident, they cannot be everywhere all the time. Some countries control this anarchy better than others, and Japan manages better than almost all. This is why it has such a low rate of violent crime.
Kobe White Bar Owner
The nutter of the day award goes to.......
WA4TKG
Well, it's OK then, if you were drunk.
Disillusioned
Well, I guess today's temperature was over 20'. It seems to be the tone of year for the nutters to come out. Glad nobody was seriously hurt, but keep your eyes open people. They are out there!
Homotenashi
When subduing someone remember to pin them facedown and sit on their elbow not on their back
ShinCebu
The same excuse again? I think this is really a society problem
sir_bentley28
What if a foreigner had committed a crime and used that excuse, I wonder what would happen?
stormcrow
Officer, I was drunk!
Oh, well, that changes everything. Your honor, he was drunk and he doesn't remember anything.
I wonder what kind of punishment he'll receive since nobody died and the injuries were not life-threatening.
Christopher Glen
And his get-out-of-jail-free card. Here we go. Still, he didn't use the usual excuse of "being frustrated" and "wanting to harm people".
nath
When has that ever been a get-out-of-jail-free card?
Christopher Glen
Ok, perhaps I exaggerated a touch. But drunkeness is an excuse commonly used across the board for all manner of offences - save drunk driving itself of course. It is likely his "drunkeness" will be taken into account as a mitigating factor.
nakanoguy01
he was drunk and decided to stab random people? i usually get the munchies and want to eat ramen. might try this next time though.
serendipitous
Three injured people is better than ten or more dead people which probably would have been the case if he had been drunk and had a semi-automatic weapon.
nath
How would that change anything?
Yumster100
@strangerland,
That's the problem. People on this site equates the suspect's reason of action as an affirmative defense.
nath
Exactly. What I can't understand is if the posters actually think that this reason actually will excuse the person from culpability, or if they are expecting the person to pretend they remembered what happened even when they don't.
nath
Why would you or he think that?
How is it an excuse? How will he be excused from culpability for this?
nath
How? When is anyone ever cleared of a crime for being drunk in Japan?
How does this excuse him from culpability? Do you have any examples of this ever happening in Japan?