News 16 people stabbed in Kawasaki

This morning, we were wondering about the police and ambulance cars rushing through our neighbourhood as well as the swarms of helicopters overhead. That explains it, How terribly shocking!

It seems 19 people fell victim to the attack, 3 of them are without vital signs (including 2 elementary school students). The perpetrator stabbed himself but was apprehended. A triage station was set up at a nearby hospital.

That's really heart-breaking.

When I complained about Japanese news having nothing more important to report on than celebrity scandals, this isn't what I had in mind.

Super sad, hopefully we'll be able to get some answers out of the attacker

Unfortunately, we might never know what ground his gears because the perpetrator died, along with a little girl waiting for her school bus.


Most likely another nutter who felt slighted by society. Japan is undoubtedly a "safe country", but there seem to be a lot of mental time bombs walking the streets. While general public health care in Japan is outstanding, mental health care has often been criticised as severely neglected.

A very sad day.

Yep. Just terrible. This sort of stuff can even happen in the countryside also. I see that here, retirees get involved with school children safety while walking to school. Its a community thing. I've had to do road crossings once and I can say, car drivers just aren't looking very carefully.

thomas said:

Unfortunately, we might never know what ground his gears because the perpetrator died, along with a little girl waiting for her school bus.

16 schoolgirls, 2 adults stabbed in rampage in Kawasaki; 1 child, 1 man dead

Sixteen pupils waiting for their school bus and two adults were stabbed by a man wielding knives in Kawasaki near Tokyo on Tuesday morning, leaving one girl and a man dead, police said. The 16 schoolgirls, pupils of Caritas elementary school, a private Catholic school in the city, were attacked…

japantoday.com

Most likely another nutter who felt slighted by society. Japan is undoubtedly a "safe country", but there seem to be a lot of mental time bombs walking the streets. While general public health care in Japan is outstanding, mental health care has often been criticised as severely neglected.

A very sad day.

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Terrible news so very sad what the world is becoming

hmm, in a lot of ways the world is much better than it used to be. Things may seem grim if we focus on the negative things that are happening, but it's important to face forward and try to keep moving the world in a positive direction; that's why the Japanese word for positivity is 前向き

For instance, there was a news show the other day going over the killer's disturbed history (abusive upbringing, bullying etc), and while he ultimately made his own decisions, he didn't do it all in a vacuum. There is more that we can do as a society to help those who suffer from imbalances, whether it's helping them find the right medicines or therapies, or even remanding them to a facility where they can't be a danger to themselves or others. Sometimes it's enough to just be there for someone that suffers from depression or delusions, and at least to listen so we know when it becomes necessary to act in order to help prevent a tragedy.

Without any good people to talk to, those who suffer from depression will continue to spin their wheels until they hit upon a thought that can gain traction; sometimes that means hurting themselves, sometimes that means hurting others, in this case it was both, and the result was horrible and tragic, but it was not inevitable. The hindsight we can gain from each of these incidents can't prevent them from happening after the fact, but it can give us the means to avoid the next one altogether.

More than a week later, the rampage is still a huge topic in the news, with more facts about the perpetrator coming to light.


The police show a daily presence in front of the elementary school in our neighbourhood, probably in an attempt to give parents a sense of security. I wonder how long they will keep it up.

Sadly, last week's stabbing has caused more collateral damage: on Saturday, a former ambassador and top bureaucrat stabbed his son, a social recluse suffering from recurrent aggressive outbursts to death, apparently to prevent him from harming others.