Saitama police continue to piece together man’s naked rampage spanning three cities

Over the years, there have been some pretty egregious crimes and acts of criminal recklessness, but an incident recently occurred in Saitama Prefecture that was so widespread and mindless that police are still trying to get a sense of everything that happened.

Here is the latest account of 48-year-old Daisuke Nishimura’s alleged streak of assaults and endangerment that resulted in multiple injuries and one death, but the list of offenses has been constantly growing.

At about 8:40 p.m. on April 21, the suspect was allegedly driving in Saitama City when he hit two men riding motorcycles one after the other, fatally injuring one of the riders. The collision became a hit-and-run when Nishimura allegedly fled the scene. However, about 500 meters (0.3 miles) down the street and into Kawaguchi City he crashed head-on into another car at an intersection, ramming it repeatedly. He exited his car, revealing himself to be completely naked except for some shoes, and then stole the car of the woman he crashed into and drove off with it.

▼ A news report showing some of the incidents that Nishimura was initially believed to have caused

Nishimura took the stolen car about 2.5 kilometers into Kawaguchi, where at about 9 p.m. he allegedly stopped at a convenience store and shoplifted some items. Sometime after that, he crashed his stolen car into a taxi that had two passengers in the rear seat. According to someone in the taxi company, Nishimura climbed onto the hood of the cab and started banging on the windshield before opening the front door, dragging the driver out while shouting “I’ll kill you,” and stealing the taxi with the passengers still inside.

He was said to have driven the taxi for 20 minutes into neighboring Soka City before crashing the stolen taxi, with its passengers still inside, into a guardrail and fleeing the scene on foot. He was caught on camera walking down the street while screaming and trying to break into at least one house. The passengers managed to escape safely.

Finally, at about 9:30 p.m. he entered a cram school while a class with junior high school students was still in progress. When confronted by the teacher, Nishimura allegedly hit the instructor in the face with a mug, causing injuries that required several stitches. Nishimura is also said to have grabbed one of the students while she was trying to flee but she managed to escape with only a scraped knee.

Police arrived shortly after and arrested him on the spot. When questioned, he told police, “I shouldn’t talk about it,” leaving very little to go on in terms of what triggered his rampage. In a subsequent investigation, police found that there were about 20 hit and runs involving either injury, death, or damage to property in Saitama City and Kawaguchi City that same evening and are trying to see if Nishimura was involved in any or all of them.

He was initially arrested for the burglary of the cram school but will surely be facing a few dozen other charges including but not limited to manslaughter, hit and run, assault, destruction of property, reckless driving, shoplifting, public indecency, obstruction of business, kidnapping, and attempted burglary. If found guilty of everything, the penalties would be substantial, to say the least, but some readers of the news suspect this may boil down to an insanity plea.

“I’m sure he must have been on some kind of drugs. The test results will come out soon.”

“I wonder if he got naked because he thought it would get him deemed insane.”

“I’ve never seen a crime like this in my life. What’s happening to Japan?”

“I don’t think he would do all that if he were just drunk.”

“I would say someone like that deserves the death penalty, but maybe he doesn’t even realize what he did.”

“I kind of hope it was because of drugs. At least it would make sense.”

“It would be scarier if he did all that sober.”

Nishimura’s condition at the time is a mystery. He was reportedly calm when dealing with the police but appeared confused when surrounded by the reporters. There were no reports of him failing a breathalyzer test on the scene, which is typically mentioned in the news for cases like this. Likewise, there was no mention of his urine testing positive for drugs either and a full blood test might take several days.

▼ A news report showing Nishimura’s arrest and seeming a little dazed by the reporters around the car

Time is certainly on the side of police since standard practice for them is to prolong his detention by nearly a month for each charge he faces while they conduct their investigation. With that alone, Nishimura could very well be locked up for quite a long time before any decision is reached.

Sources: TBS News Dig, Yomiuri Shimbun Online, Mainichi Shimbun, The Sankei Shimbun, Hachima Kiko

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