Latest Japanese knife-killer rampage

Story here.

Check out some of the readers' comments below.

The relevance to us as MA shows up in a couple of arguments that I'm sure have come up before on this board, but sometimes it helps to look at some of the self-defence issues again as new cases come up.

1) Gun use. OK, so chances are this'll turn into a huge flame-war, but here goes... Some in the comments are arguing that this kind of attack supports legalizing guns as if people were carrying they'd've been abale to stop the knifeman. I would say that, especially knowing that area which is very crowded and pedestrianised at the weekend, in this case anyone pulling a gun would have been endangering other people more than helping.

Since the chances of the flame-war are pretty big, let's keep this to a practical discussion, rather than legal, moral or political considerations.

2) Police action. Many people are saying that the policeman was a) too timid - pulling his gun after his baton, and not shooting him, b) too slow - more policemen on the streets would prevent this from happening. Personally I think he did the right thing.

3) Knife bans. The guy was using a survival knife. The knife law in Japan is pretty half-hearted in terms of serrations on the back, length etc, especially length... 15 cm is well enough to kill anyone, as illustrated by this case when a 13cm knife was used amply enough to kill 7 in a very short space of time. Hell, 3cm is enough to hit the heart.

Any thoughts?

Let's try and keep these relevant to SD...

 

i agree with the method the policeman used. had the stabber been a shooter the policeman would have to have employed his gun initially but i think going to the baton first seems more appropriate. it says he hit the guy with it a few times before having to resort to the gun so it wasn't like he was just standing there slack-jawed with a baton watching the mayhem.

i think the man caught many of the victims so unaware that they would have had little chance to defend themselves. i tried putting myself in their shoes and imagined if i had seen a car seemingly lose control and plow through a bunch of people on the sidewalk. i would have run over there to help and also been caught by surprise and stabbed to death. i think this situation may have been exacerbated by the fact the japan has remarkably low violent crime rates (or so i am led to believe). i doubt any of them could have seen it coming.

*edit*

of course this is in no way to imply that having low crime rates is part of the problem. it is just to show why so few people would have been in a position to defend themselves.

 

Bsclf

If the guy was stabbing people then i would have no problem with the cop just pulling out his gun and shooting him no hesitation. So what it could be my friends or family the idiot is stabbing the quicker he is dead the better, boo hoo so sad i would not loose a moment sleep. The world is a better place without this............ whats the words.

 

Hmm, so you think it's a good idea to give the police the power of judge, jury and summary executioner?

Anyway, I don't think you've got the hang of this 'thread' type thing, where you know, what you post is connected to the previous posts in some way.

Or were you seriously suggesting that the cop was too timid, and he actually should've taken out his gun and blown the guy's head off, rather than backing him up, beating the knife out of his hand with his baton, drawing and cornering him, then forcing him down and sitting on him till back-up came...?

 

Shoot the leg?

 

So we ban all knives over 3cm? Or instead of running around banning inanimate objects we make the penalties for Richard Heads running around carrying or using themas weapons harsher and enforce them vigorously. He would have done even more damage with a traditional Japanese Tuna knife with it's 2 foot blade, do you think the Japanese will stop eating tuna at any point soon?
You can kill with a screwdriver, a hammer, a golf club, an 8" nail, banning things is doing something to be seen to do something, banning actions with stiff penalties does the job.

 

Yeah I've been following this one.. it's huge in the papers over here as we have similar areas and the population density is even of the similar areas in Japan or perhaps a bit higher.

The relevance to us as MA shows up in a couple of arguments that I'm sure have come up before on this board, but sometimes it helps to look at some of the self-defence issues again as new cases come up.

The NRA would love this sort of argument. There are a whole lot of cons here. People drawing and shooting and missing and hitting bystanders. Police showing up and not knowing what's going on and then shooting the gun wielder who's just shot the knife wielder. I'm not really sure I'm all that convinced that arming the populace is the best way to deal with this sort of random violence. You have very little vetting process with civilians carrying guns which I suspect is different to the police officers. The average civilian is expected to deal with his adrenalin dump in a combat fire situation and fire accurately? Jeez... talk about high risk.

LOL!
Not a chance. There is no separating the issue. It's all part and parcel.

Wow. I for one can't understand why they would bother. Shoot first and ask questions later. I'd think the truck crashed into a crowd of pedestrians and the nutter who jumps out and then stabs and slashes multiple people to death with a knife would be enough to warrant putting a cap in his ass in hella short order. I mean seriously... pulling a baton in this circumstance when a side arm was readily available is absurd in the extreme. Why let the incident run on even a millisecond longer than it has to... why risk more innocent people... why risk injuring an officer?

So at one point when they ban samurai swords and hunting knives and all sorts of other stuff... what do the do when someone picks up the most common weapon of all... the lowly kitchen knife... or as here in Hong Kong the meat cleaver... do we outlaw those as well? Do we then go on to ban pens and ballpoints and pencils? What about random bits of construction waste? Can we fine the companies that put pavers on the sidewalk in case someone picks one up and brains someone with one? What about we go after those dastardly scissor manufacturers.

Seriously there has to be a balance struck. Just banning every thing edged or pointy is absurd. The problem needs to be addressed at a deeper level than at the level of the tools used.

 

Way to miss the point.

It's well within a police officers power and right to draw a sidearm and open fire on a person that is in the act of harming and/or putting people in harms way such as the situation was. There is massive difference between him drawing his sidearm to protect people who are under attack from a knife/truck wielding nutbar and a summary executioner. To paint it as anything different simply is patently absurd.

Police officers hold a position in society where we trust them to make decisions in society regarding the safety and well being of others on a regular basis. Why would this instance be any different... why all of a sudden is he now some hooded executioner?

Puhleeeeze.

 

Mmmmm....maybe I missed it, but I think you folks may be tip-toe-ing around the larger issue here. Yes, I agree we can talk about what the police do, can do and have done. To my way of thinking it seems that folks are pretty easily distracted from the reality of what life is actually like.

From our warm, safe and comfortable places at our keyboards we pass judgement on how people in the rest of the world live on a daily basis. We can be suitably shocked at the rampage of a person who reports he is "tired of living" and "hates society". What we forget is that we know about this because it happened in an urban location within the easy reach of the media.

The fact that this event is happening-times-one-hundred all over the Earth on a second-by-second basis seems to slide right by us. I raise this point to remind folks that in the end, despite all the trappings of "modern society" we Humans are little changed from our relatives of a millenia ago. In like manner, WE---- not the cops---not the fire department---not the National Guard--- are responsible for our own personal security.

As you can see from this event, such attacks happen fast and often with maximum damage to the victim. And no amount of blather about legislating weapons, or suing this or that person is going to change this. I submit that as times change with increasing severity in economic and survival issues we will be reminded increasingly about how we are responsible for the personal security of what and who we hold dear. None of the people this nutcase killed woke-up that morning knowing it was going to be their last day alive.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

Every so often some mentally ill person will harm other people. In many cases it's inherently unpredictable and the average person on the street cannot plan for it.

I would say of all the potential issues here (healthcare, policing, sociological factors), self-defence is of negligible importance in the grander scheme of things.

If someone seriously wants to kill you, either due to you being in the wrong place at the wrong time or because in their view you're asking for it, then they'll kill you. C'est la vie. Be nice to people and hope for the best.

 

"....If someone seriously wants to kill you, either due to you being in the wrong place at the wrong time or because in their view you're asking for it, then they'll kill you. C'est la vie. Be nice to people and hope for the best."

Like it or not, there is a lot of truth there.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

Precisely.

In case you got me wrong, the reference in the first post wasn't what I think: just some of the things that have been suggested. Although, I do wonder at allowing any knife carrying by law if your upper limit is 15 cm. That's a helluva a big knife! Either ban them altogether or don't bother.

 

I think you're missing my point. I'm not arguing with your first paragraph. However in this case the killer had been separated from the crowd, he was in a side street alone with the cop, he wasn't running, he was in diaolgue with the cop...

The policeman did the right thing in talking him out of further violence and beating his knife out of his hand with his baton, followed by drawing his gun and subduing him I think. It's not clear from GSHAMBROOKE's post whether he meant the cop could've shot him in the act or just since he had been stabbing people. Of course, if it's in the act I have no problem, but if it's after the fact and the guy has basically capitulated, I do, and I think you have to very careful with what you sanction.

As for the 'hooded executioner' comment - that was just silly. I didn't imply anything like that. I wasn't being so melodramatic, and the point of 'summary execution' is it's on the spot and at that time... not premeditated, so don't put words in my mouth. Perhaps you didn't get the meaning of 'summary' in this case?

 

Exactly what I think.

As I said in my post just, he was separated from the public so there was no more risk to the people, and the officer was standing away enough from him to easily have the jump and either get medieval with his baton or get to his gun, or at least he was confident enough to think so. Maybe the cop thought that reaching for his gun woudl've hade a chance of aggravating the guy further and causing him to attack again. And at that distance the chances of successfully pulling your gun before the guy sticks you are pretty slim from what I've read.

But this brings up another SD issue: assessment of the guy's mental state. If he's a knife-rampager, it's quite possible that he can't handle confrontation, so if you confront him he'll back down. He wants to inflict pain and like a bully, doesn't expect to have anything meted out on him.

Of course, I'm quite prepared to accept I'm talking out of my **** in this case!

OK< so politically, and self defence-wise in this case the main point is: What is 'the balance'?! I think allowing knives up to 15 cm is ludicrous: completely arbitrary. As you say sushi knives can be 2' and a box cutter is 10 mm. But, then again, it must be easier to go on a lethal rampage with a 13 cm knife than a box cutter... so if you're going to ban knives, what makes a common sense compromise?

 

Hmm... It think summary execution necessarily implies that someone is a being an executioner. The reason I took issue with it is because the assumption is that by pulling his gun and using it means that he intends to kill the suspect. Many people shot by police don't die... so 'summary execution' isn't always the case. But no big deal if you want to use summary execution the way you have it makes more sense once you explained it so I've not really got an issue with it.

If he was already removed from slashing/stabbing people... then yeah I have no problem with the police officer at that point NOT pulling his gun if he gets the job done with his baton alone.

 

I find myself to be in agreement with the fellow who pointed out that Self Defense is merely an afterthought in such a scenario. The streets of Japan are not being overrun by homicidal maniacs bent on realizing the apocalypse with survival knives. Not very much needs to change.

Chances are, if you are in a crowd and a lunatic with a knife decides to blindside you, your only course of action is prayer (yes, beg for forgiveness).

So ladies and gentlemen, the crew would appreciate it if you calmed down and returned to your seats. Thank you for your cooperation.

 

Latest in:

The local government has reacted in the only sensible way you could to prevent this kind of thing from happening again: they've banned the pedestrian only day. :bang: :cry: :ban:

No matter how daft the conversation on here could get, we couldn't match the real thing from the Japanese authorities.

I think those Akihabarans are lucky - they were going to ban Sundays...

 

What is this pedestrian only day?

 

Actually' he did not initially surrender.

However, I do get the idea behind it. As a police officer you have a heirarchy of priorities for public safety, that includes the safety of the offender. Ultimately we are faced with the task of deciding whether to inflict harm in an effort to prevent more harm from being done and this descion has to be made in a split second. Think about this: We are one of the few professions in the world that are not allowed to fail.

Hindsight being 20-20, I have to say that is this case I would have gone straight to presentation/use of lethal force. Now let's say that rather then a young, physically fit, determined and aggressive male, the offender was obese, elderly and barely able to carry out the threat. In that situation I would start lower on the force scale and work up as needed.

 

He had basically capitulated. There were lots of different news stories going around afterwards, but according to the TV news over here and the vid footage, the policeman back him against the wall, he refused to hand over his knife, so the cop beat it out of his hand, the guy refused to hand over the other weapons he was carrying so the cop drew his gun on him. Sounds like perfect handling to me.

BTW, judging by most cases here, the J-cops aren't bothered about the safety of the offender. In the slightest. Maybe it was the presence of so many cameras...

Also, I know it's nitpicking but the guy could barely be described as physically fit.