 |
| courtesy of data panik at Flickr |
NHK News has been leading with this item over the past couple of days. Apparently, at some Denny's branch in Chiba Prefecture, some rather rough types in their 60s(?!) came in and sought out someone who had crossed them over some possible money issues and drilled him dead with a few bullets.
Although I lived in Chiba-ken, I didn't recognize the name of the city, so I assume that it isn't too close to Tokyo. Still, in a country that prides itself on being very strict when it comes to gun ownership, this was indeed a terrifying state of affairs. The thing that struck me though was the age of the assassins. Maybe the eyewitnesses got the ages wrong, but I think it's really unusual for organized criminals of that age to plug someone dead...that seems more the job of the younger chinpira. So far, the killers haven't been caught but even when they are, the psychological damage has been done. There were 2 or 3 schools in the area, and the families are scared witless.
Part of my reverse culture shock on getting back to Toronto has been the almost nightly news reports that begin, "There was a shooting in...." Heck, someone robbed Leslie Subway Station, of all things. If anything like that happened on the Tokyo Metro, it would take up the news for weeks.
