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Police in Chiba city have arrested a 40-year-old man on suspicion of stabbing a 16-year-old boy in the neck with an umbrella.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 3:40 p.m. in Mihama Ward on Oct 1, Fuji TV reported. Police quoted the boy as saying that the man got upset with him after his shoulder bumped the man. The man then poked the boy’s neck with his umbrella, piercing it.
The boy was taken to hospital, bleeding from the neck. Doctors said his wound will take about three weeks to heal.
Police identified the suspect as Manabu Sakuraba, an unemployed man who lives about two kilometers from where the assault took place. He was identified through street surveillance camera footage and eyewitness accounts.
Sakuraba was quoted by police as saying he got angry because the boy broke his umbrella when he bumped into him. He admitted swinging the umbrella at the boy but denied any intent to kill him.
© Japan Today
14 Comments
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Disillusioned
What's the bet it was a ¥100 umbrella? What's the charge? Assault with a deadly weapon? There was another guy killed with an umbrella just a couple of months ago.
Watch out for the crazies people! There are more out there than you think!
Julian Genesis Neal
He admitted swinging the umbrella at the boy but denied any intent to kill him.
You stabbed him in the "neck" you dumba**! How can you say that with a straight face and say you didn't intended to kill him. Are you kidding me? Surprised this guy didn't pull the old "I was drunk and don't remember anything" BS.
DaDude
But more than that, it was probably the nutter's imaginary friend.
savethegaijin
Man arrested for stabbing boy in neck with umbrella
Oh so this is a thing now. Great.
Jalapeno
How is that even possible? The bottom of an umbrella is usually not sharp enough to pierce anything, much less a 16 year old's neck.
And why are a lot of these perpetrators we read about here unemployed?
John-San
No I did not intend to kill the boy just sever his spinal cord so the boy could be a parapleagueic for the rest of his life. So when he goes to get up and can,t more this will remind him to take notice and more care when walking around in public
Magnus Roe
It probably wasn't a 100 yen store umbrella with a plastic tip. Common umbrellas often have a long steel tip. I'm sure he didn't intend to stab him in the throat, it's fairly plausible that he intended to hit him but did not in the neck (Still a dumb thing to do however.)
Illyas
Reminds me of a scene in an anime!
Goodlucktoyou
Lucky not his eye. I hope he gets well and stops bumping older unemployed men and breaking their umbrellas.
Julian Genesis Neal
@Illyas I know what you're talking about. The anime "Another" Episode 4. But this isn't the time to talk about anime. This is a serious matter.
smithinjapan
Excuse is BS. No way an umbrella broke simply by bumping into someone, unless it was a sidewalk so narrow you have no business opening an umbrella in the first place (and that has already poked, scraped, or scratched a few dozen people) and is a cheap piece of crap. In any case, yet another person here snapping over trivialities. Lock him up, or at the very least assign him local duties cleaning up -- then he gets to work, for no money!
bjohnson23
Lets forget about the umbrella and the after fact and get to the root cause. Did the boy apologize for bumping into the man or was the bump intentional? The root cause was the bump? The umbrella piercing is after the fact.
sighclops
@Jalapeno
A very valid question. I've thought about this a lot and deduced that Japan has a meagre welfare system at best, only topped by there being a complete absence of a mid-career job market. In other words, once someone of middle age (especially a woman, unfortunately) gets laid off, finding work is extremely gruelling here. This double whammy drives many to extremes (no, I'm not saying this is solely to blame - but it's definitely a factor).
nath
w/o defending this guy's actions in any way, there are droves of "marginal" guys in their 30s and 40s who could`t compete in the exam / corporate wars, and thus in Japan have essentially no social identity. They are in serious need of psych counselling, job placement and life skills assistance, and a chance at regular employment that pays a living wage. If not, expect more of the same.