by Tyra’nell Pille-Lu
EBC Japan Correspondent
TOKYO, Japan (Eagle News) — Nine injured on New Year’s day as a car drives over a crowd in Tokyo disrupting the usual January first Japanese tradition.
One of the injured is a 19-year-old university student currently residing in Tokyo who is still unconscious at this time due to a critical head injury.
Kazuhiro Kusakabe, the driver of the mini car admitted his attempts during an investigation on Friday, saying he planned to pour out kerosene at people visiting Meiji Shrine, a famous Shinto shrine.
The police retrieved a high-pressure water spray with an ignition tool and a tank containing 20-liters of kerosene inside the mini-vehicle the suspect rented. Kusakabe planned to use them in the attack, saying, “I intend to use the sprayer and the kerosene to set the crowd in Meiji Shrine on fire.”
From a report in Japan Today, Kusakabe, a resident of Osaka Prefecture was arrested on January first for attempted murder, after slamming his car into pedestrians on a busy shopping area on Takeshita Street in Harajuku, a center of Japanese youth fashion.
Police quoted Kusakabe saying he drove into the pedestrians after “things didn’t go well.” Sources further added that the suspect also mentioned targeting “areas where there were many people” and had, thus, considered Osaka as well as Tokyo.
According to Japanese online news, the suspect talked about how he bought the pressure pump and nozzle several months before the attack. He has also been practicing on the balcony of his parents’ apartment in Osaka as some neighbors watching him.
“Mental illness is a problem that needs more recognition here (in Japan),” one netizen commented about the incident.
