Japan seems to have issues with knife attacks, as the latest one claimed 19 lives and injured 26 other people.
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19 killed in the worst mass-killing attack since World War II
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The attacker was a former employee
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He wanted to kill disabled people
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He was involuntarily committed last year for wanting to “kill disabled people”
The gruesome attack took place at a disabled care facility.
The attacker was a 26-year old former employee.
The attacker said that “disabled people should disappear”.
The attack took place at a disabled care facility in the town of Sagamihara, which is just south of Tokyo.
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The attacker, Satoshi Uematsu (26), had launched his attack at 2:30 AM, carrying out the worst attack in Japan in decades.
To make this even stranger, Uematsu drove to the local police station and turned himself in, saying “I did it”. He was carrying a bag of knives when he came into the police station.
The gender split was 9 women and 10 men, ranging in age from 18-70.
Uematsu was hospitalized earlier in the year for saying that he wanted to “kill disabled people”. He was involuntarily admitted to the hospital for a letter he had written to lawmakers.
The letter called for a bill that would allow disabled people to be euthanized. He also said in the letter that he would be willing to carry out the killings himself, which is probably why he was committed.
The letter also said, “My goal is a world in which, in cases where it is difficult for the severely disabled to live at home and be socially active, they can be euthanized with the consent of their guardians.”
This is just the latest in a number of knife attacks that have taken place in Japan over the years.
In 2015, a man stabbed and killed five people between the ages of 60-80 in the city of Sumoto on Awaji Island.
In 2008, a man drove a truck into a crowd in the popular gaming district Akihabara, which is in Tokyo, Japan, and began stabbing random people. He killed four people and injured eight more. He was sentenced to death in 2011.
And in 2001, 37 year old former janitor walked into an elementary school in Osaka and went on a stabbing rampage, killing eight children, and wounding 21 others.
This most recent stabbing was the worst mass-killing attack in recent history for Japan, apart from the nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. That gas attack was an act of domestic terrorism, that killed 12 and wounded 50. It also caused temporary vision problems for 5,000 others.
Image: Flickr
