Horror attack: Police officers surrounding a house where a suspect is believed to be holed up inside in Nakano, Nagano prefecture. — AFP
TOKYO: Japanese police detained a man who holed up in a building after allegedly killing four people, including two police officers, in a gun and knife attack.
Masanori Aoki, 31, was taken into custody at his house outside a farm near the city of Nakano in the Nagano region, police said yesterday.
They also confirmed a fourth fatality overnight – an elderly woman who was found injured at the scene and later pronounced dead.
Another woman and two police officers were earlier confirmed dead in the attack which started on Thursday afternoon.
Aoki has been formally arrested with suspicion of murder over the death of one of the police officers, Nagano regional police chief Iwao Koyama told reporters.
He is likely to be rearrested later in connection with the other deaths, in a process that allows law enforcement to detain a suspect for longer while investigations continue.
Aoki is not contesting the charge, Koyama said, adding that 100 officers are investigating the case.
“This case was an extremely heinous act that shocked not just regional residents but society as a whole.
“We need to thoroughly investigate this and see the whole picture including the how and why,” he said.
The rampage in a rural area of the central region was a rare instance of violent crime in Japan, which has a low murder rate and some of the world’s toughest gun laws.
Several local media reported Aoki is the son of the speaker of Nakano’s city assembly, and lived with his parents and aunt in the house where he holed up overnight.
“Police are investigating and they are trying to uncover the whole picture of the incident, including how the crime developed and its background,” government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said. — AFP
