Wednesday, February 22, 2012

From the police blotter of Japan

courtesy of Simsie of Flickr
Wednesday February 22, 2:47 p.m.

As I've said before many a time, crime is not all that common in Tokyo when taking into consideration the population and its density. But sometimes what crime there is...is pretty bizarre. I found out from NHK that there had been a stabbing incident right at the height of the evening rush hour at Shibuya Station last night.

Some 70-year-old woman, who had been squatting by the lockers in the station, decided to knife a woman a decade her junior because, in her own words, "she was staring at me". The senior citizen would-be killer got her three times in the shoulder and side while commuters fled from the scene and before the cops showed up. I recognized the area of the crime since I used to walk through the station a fair amount in the past. I saw the awnings for the Tokyu Department Store and the interior walkway between the West and East wings of the station. Never would've thought that a geriatric crime would take place in the Teen Mecca of the country.

Then there have been the starving deaths of a couple of households over the past few days. A couple of elderly parents and a middle-aged son were found partially mummified in their apartment some months after they had died. And there was news of a 45-year-old woman and her 4-year-old mentally disabled son who were found in their apartment...some weeks after they had died alone.