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Sagamihara / AFP
A former employee went on knife rampage at a Japanese centre for the disabled on Tuesday, leaving 19 people dead and 25 injured in the country’s worst mass killing for decades.
The 26-year-old man, who was fired and hospitalised earlier this year after making a threat to kill hundreds of disabled people, later turned himself in at a police station, carrying bloodied knives and admitting to officers: “I did it.”
He reportedly also said: “The disabled should all disappear.”
Authorities identified the attacker as Satoshi Uematsu and said he had worked at the care centre for mentally disabled people in Sagamihara, a city of more than 700,000 people west of Tokyo, until February.
They said the attack began in the early hours of the morning when Uematsu broke a first-floor window to get into the building. Public broadcaster NHK reported that he tied up one caregiver before starting to stab the residents. A doctor at one of the hospitals where victims were taken said some had deep wounds to the neck.
“The patients are very shocked mentally, and they cannot speak now,” the doctor told NHK.
A fleet of ambulances, police cars and fire trucks converged on the Tsukui Yamayuri-en centre, a low-rise complex nestled against forested hills, which was cordoned off and draped with yellow “Keep Out” tape.
Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world and the mass killing is believed to be the nation’s worst since 1938, when a man armed with an axe, sword and rifle went on a rampage that left 30 people dead.
“This is a very tragic, shocking incident in which many innocent people became victims,” top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.
Hospitalised and released
Japanese media said that in February Uematsu had delivered a letter to the speaker of Japan’s parliamentary lower house, threatening to attack two care centres including Tsukui Yamayuri-en and kill 470 residents.
He said it would launch a “revolution” that would “stimulate the economy and prevent World War III”.
In the letter he also presented his vision of a society in which the seriously handicapped could be euthanised with the approval of family members as “handicapped people only create unhappiness”.
The ramblings brought him to the attention of Tokyo police, who informed Sagamihara authorities that he was a potential threat, a city official said.
Uematsu was hospitalised on February 19, reportedly on the same day he left his job at the care centre, but was discharged 12 days later when a doctor deemed he was not a threat, the Sagamihara official said.
While hospitalised Uematsu was diagnosed as suffering from paranoia as well as being dependent on cannabis, he added.
‘Normal, nice boy’
Police said they received a call from the centre around 2:30 am—about 20 minutes after the assault began—reporting that a man armed with knives had entered the facility. They said he turned himself in half an hour later.
Fire department spokesmen told AFP that the dead included nine men and 10 women aged from 18 to 70, and that another 25 people were wounded, 20 of them seriously.
People in Uematsu’s neighbourhood, about a 10-minute walk from the crime scene, expressed disbelief.
He was a “normal, nice boy” who always smiled and offered a greeting, said next-door neighbour Akihiro Hasegawa.
“This is unbelievable,” the 73-year-old told AFP, adding that Uematsu lived in the house with his parents until they moved out four or five years ago.
Some Japanese could not believe the crime had occurred in their peaceful country.
“It’s crazy,” posted a Twitter user. “When I first heard 19 people died, I thought it was somewhere overseas.”