Man arrested over police box attack, gun robbery in Western Japan

June 17, 2019

Suita, Osaka Pref., June 17 (Jiji Press)--The prefectural police department of Osaka arrested a 33-year-old man on Monday morning for alleged robbery and attempted murder over an incident on Sunday in which a police officer at a police box in the western Japan prefecture was critically stabbed and his handgun was stolen.

The police department found and seized the suspect, Yujiro Iimori, in a mountain in the Osaka Prefecture city of Minoo, which borders the city of Suita, where the police box is located, after mobilizing some 5,000 police officers in the search for the man following the attack.

The police also confiscated the handgun the suspect carried with him. One of the five bullets loaded in the gun is believed to have been fired.

Iimori denied the allegations against him, saying, "I didn't commit the crime," according to the police department. The police also quoted him as saying, "It's because my illness worsened, it's because people around me became terrible."

When the police found him in the mountain, Iimori was lying on a bench, with a plastic bag containing the gun placed under the bench. Only four bullets were left in the revolver.

As some people heard an explosion sound near the police box around 6 a.m. Sunday (9 p.m. Saturday GMT), shortly after the robbery and attempted murder took place, the police department believes that the one round was fired at the time, according to the police. No one was injured by the gun.

Iimori allegedly stabbed Suzunosuke Kose, 26, on the chest and other parts of his body at a parking lot of the police box around 5:40 a.m. Sunday while the officer was on duty, and robbed him of the gun. The attacked police officer is in critical condition.

The police box, staffed with Kose and two senior police officers, is in front of Senriyama Station on the Hankyu Senri Line of railway operator Hankyu Corp.

Security camera images captured at the police box showed a suspicious man walking up and down near the facility between 4:15 a.m. and 5 a.m.

About 20 minutes later, a man looking like the man in the footage entered Kandaimae Station, next to Senriyama, using an electronic ticket card. The two stations are about 800 meters away from each other.

Around 5:30 a.m., police received a call in a male voice, made from a public phone at Kandaimae Station, claiming that his apartment room had been ransacked by a sneak thief. Images from multiple security cameras later showed a man running toward the police box.

The two senior police officers rushed to the apartment building on motorcycles, ahead of Kose.

When Kose was to follow the two round 5:40 a.m., he was attacked with a cooking knife and suffered several stab wounds, including on his left chest, investigative sources said. The knife had a 15-centimeter blade, according to the sources.

Kose is believed to have been attacked just after he climbed on his motorcycle, so he was not prepared to defend himself, the sources said. The motorcycle was found overturned near where Kose was lying bleeding.

The claimed ransacking later proved to be false.

One of Kose's stab wounds showed that the knife blade, which passed through a gap in his bulletproof vest, penetrated his lung and reached his heart, the sources said.

After the assault, the apparent suspect bought a jacket and trousers at an Aeon supermarket some 5 kilometers from the police box shortly past 9 a.m. Sunday, just after the shop opened for the day's operations, the sources said. An employee at the supermarket made an emergency call to police, noticing that his hand was stained with blood.

After releasing the security camera images, the police identified Iimori based on reports from citizens, including one on Sunday saying that "the man looks like my son," the sources said.

Following the arrest of the suspect, schools in Suita and neighboring municipalities started classes as usual on Monday.

Iimori, a resident of Shinagawa Ward in Tokyo, had lived in areas around Suita until he graduated from high school.

According to sources in the Defense Ministry, Iimori entered the Maritime Self-Defense Force in April 2009, but left the MSDF six months later, when he had the rank of seaman apprentice. He was never engaged in a mission involving the use of guns during his MSDF career, the sources said.

Just before committing the suspected crime, Iimori was working as a cleaner and doing other duties at a golf practice range in Tokyo, according to informed sources.

Around June 10, he applied for leave, complaining of a mental health problem. Iimori initially planned to take three days off, but later told his boss that it would be difficult for him to go back to work before the end of June.

On Saturday afternoon, Iimori phone his boss and said that he would likely be able to work again from around June 25.

According to his former classmates and a Facebook account believed to be of the suspect, Iimori graduated from Komazawa University in Tokyo after studying at elementary, junior high and high schools in Suita. Jiji Press