Two women slashed on trains in Yokohama

It's these kind of incidents that prove my point when anyone wants to debate gun control. Mentally disturbed people are everywhere and when someone is determined to hurt other people, they will choose whatever weapon is at hand. Either outlaw every item that can be wielded as a weapon or better yet, put forth efforts to make sure mental health issues are better understood, addressed, and proper care is provided.

The gun control debate is not relevant to this discussion.

What a coward!!! I hope this person is caught asap!!! We don't need another akihabara style attack.

This is really scary. I was on the Minato Mirai line at about that time....

Scary indeed... however .. are there no cameras on the trains? I mean, get a station staff member to look at the footage from around woman 1, and then get another staff member to look at the footage around woman 2, and then they will see if its the same man or not.

No?

Obviously a silly question - but why do people do that?

Another nutter on the loose. Keep your eyes open people. But, you have to remember, these kinds of scumbags only attack the defenseless, so the average person is pretty safe, but you may witness it. In which case, you should grab the loon and beat him senseless!

Obviously a silly question - but why do people do that?

Because they're crazy losers.

i guess since the trains are always crowded in the japan, they didn't notice the person slashing them or what they look like. i hope they catch this person. but where are the cameras?, i'm sure they have camera's this is japan. the lady did get slashed at a station.

ikemen:

" Obviously a silly question - but why do people do that? "

Normal people do not do that. Otherwise, life in big cities would be impossible.

There now have been three incidents like this, women getting slashed or stabbed.

One was on a boat in the bay.

One was on the Odakyu in Shinjuku, I believe.

Now this one.

It is a trend? Or possibly the same idiot?

Well, three incidents in the last month or so.

Kimizukashii: "...see if its the same man or not. No?" No indication yet as to a male or a female slasher.

tizalleyman, yes, exactly! Nutters will be Nutters. No slasher is a sane person. Mental health care is nearly non-existent in Japan, but the moral fabric is relatively strong. Blaming the weapon used is obviously foolish. Just don't tell that to the lefty-loonies.

nandakandamanda. . . excellent point, however I would be very, very, very surprised if this slasher turns out to be a woman. More often than not when women only are targeted, it is by a man. A man who hates woman and society and everything.

don't people jolt as they're slashed?...how is it no one has seen anything or anything

Kimizukashii, I tend to agree with you, but I have often been startled at what comes off the wall here!

It could have been a box cutter with the blade out poking out of someones bag unknowiny. The are very sharp and offen you cat feel the cut.

I can understand if the woman whose blanket got slashed didn't notice the man who did it, but I find it hard to believe the woman who had her butt cheek slashed didn't notice. Did it not cut through to the skin?

The article didn't say she didn't noticed being cut, she noticed being cut and reported it, but she didn't see who did it. If you ride the train during rush hour you know how many folks bump into and pass each other, she was cut but didn't see who did it.

Weren't the cops trying to find someone who slashed a girl's buttocks on a ferry in Tokyo a few weeks ago? Same person or more than one of these going around? Still, six o'clock in the morning in the winter is a pretty strange time for anyone to be up and about if they are not actually going to work or something... Trouble sleeping?

smith et al,

I have had cuts that I didn't notice at all for the first second or several. Then ouch. Never experienced it? Especially a really clean cut from a very sharp object like a razor blade. And if it is a cut that comes on as a vague burning sensation as they sometimes do, and its on yr backside, you might not figure out it is actually a cut for a couple more seconds. Especially if you are on the train and spaced out and not thinking about being attacked.

Really only talking about a couple of seconds, but that's enough time for a perp to blend back into the crowd of sleepy commuters.

Before people get too hysterical about this "news" it might just be that there's a sharp piece of metal sticking out somewhere on the train. A couple of months ago on one of the local trains I saw that there was a sharp piece of metal sticking out of the seat. My best guess was that one of the metal bands securing the seat had succumbed to metal fatigue and snapped up and through the seat. I reported it to the conductor (who didn't understand, so I had to take him and show him). He didn't seem too worried about it, and just put some tape across the seat to mark it as out of service, so I'm guessing that this sort of thing does happen from time to time, especially in older trains.

I think that people may well be leaping from "things being cut" to "invisible knife-wielding stalker" and skipping all the other possible logical explanations. Have the J-cops even checked those carriages for sharp pieces of metal?

I doubt we'll get any follow-up on this though, especially if it is something as pedestrian as, "Phantom stalker turns out to be broken seat support".

Reason for incidents as this, is the riduluous quality of life for japanese people. It is so easy to fall through the roster in times of high joblessnes. A psychological unstable person may react in away like this to take "revenge" on the luckier members of society. Given the utterly ignorant politics of japvernments of Japan, there is no way to prevent an increase of such incident. As with most issues, the point here also is, that the japanese people have just voluntarily chosen a government that is completely ignorant of social issues, and so the people once more has the government it deserves. Now live with it!

These incidents when put into perspective although unpleasant are not so serious. It could have been worse, a determined knifer would have stabbed deeply causing severe if not fatal wounds. This indeed seems like someone with a box cutter was covertly slashing at a few passengers that were either askeep or not aware of their surroundings. I would recomend people to be vigilant at all times in public places. Perhaps this individual is summoning up the courage gradually for something worse? At any rate the mental health debate is a difficult one because it is used too much as an excuse, people crack under stress or pressures in sudden rages of anger or odd behaviour. We see this often in the form of road rage. People become targets all too often because they are unaware of their surroundings and in Japan instead of being sociable, the norm here is to shut themselves off from their surroundings, look down at the floor, shut their eyes and generally not observe those around them. Hence the first form of self defense is being aware.

We had a student slasher here a couple of years back. Slashed other students faces. He was caught in class and the cops found the bloody box cutter in his schoolbag.

My guess is it is being done deliberately by someone with a grudge against society, as volland says, or against women in particular. A similar type of protest you can come across here is insertion of sharp objects into supermarket food, or needles pushed into train seats.

Jane's Blonde, of the handgun deaths you referred, ～60% are suicides according to CDC data(the successful accomplishment of which is a crime in places).

There may or may not have actually been a slasher, as others have pointed out. I also had a pair of pants cut by a protruding broken seat-spring which I realised upon standing.

But, lots of people are on edge in this country.

Just checked the J news on this and the 19-yr-old university student only noticed the 10 cm cut in her thigh after she got off the train. She was taken to hospital but she was alright. The police said a bladed object of some kind had been used.

I am guessing that if it was the same person they would probably not have been able to slash a blanket for 15 cm with a knife. It would have to be more like a razor blade or box cutter.

In order to find out more I had a search around the internet but it appears no-one has compiled figures on the sex of random slashers. J Wiki had an interesting page summarizing present thinking on this seemingly Japanese phenomenon though, so for those of you who read Japanese, here is the link: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%9A%E3%82%8A%E9%AD%94

The quoted profile of the average slasher is as follows: 主に20代から40代の男性[4]（希に女性もいる） 反社会的態度 サディスティックな性格を持つ 家族に暗い過去がある 劣等感がある

Generally males between 20 and 40 years of age. (Occasionally females) Anti-social attitude Has sadistic character trait Something dark in the family's past Inferiority complex

I can understand if the woman whose blanket got slashed didn't notice the man who did it, but I find it hard to believe the woman who had her butt cheek slashed didn't notice. Did it not cut through to the skin?

I think it is pretty fair to say that she is pretty kinky!