In horror movies, perverted murderers set fire to people in confined spaces like trams, and the battle royale plot that cannot escape is terrible just thinking about it. But such a thing actually happened. When horror comes to reality, the level of madness is even more suffocating.
On Halloween night, many Japanese people will wear a variety of prop costumes and take the tram to go out. But no one expected that a young man dressed in a clown male joker costume mixed in the general crowd had another picture.
He stole long knives, gasoline and dangerous liquids suspected of sulfuric acid (also reported to be lighter oil), slashed multiple people, set fires in the carriage, and finally sat in his seat with no expression and smoked a cigarette, saying to the police who came to arrest him: "I want to kill two and then be sentenced to death." ”
After that, he calmly added: "I was unemployed in June, and my friends were not going well, and I wanted to die." But I couldn't die myself, so I wanted to kill one or two people and get sentenced to death! I like to kill clowns, so I buy clothes to play killing games. ”
At about 8:00 p.m., Kyota Hattori, 24, boarded the Train bound for Shinjuku on the Tokyo Tram Keio Line. There were 10 carriages in total, and he seemed to have deliberately sat on the 5th carriage in the middle section, with a long knife hidden behind him, carrying bottles containing gasoline and acidic liquids, as well as lighters and cigarettes.
How dense the Tokyo tram is, I believe many friends have seen reports from the news. But for Kyota Hattori, the densely packed passengers in the carriage just became the human cover when he entered the carriage with weapons. Coupled with the fact that there is no security check at the tram station, he is unimpeded.
Get on the bus, close the door, stand still, at 8:00 p.m., the door was just closed, the Tokyo Police Station and the Fire Department received a report, the police hysterical cry for help: Someone in the carriage wielded a knife to cut people, set fire!
According to witnesses at the scene, Kyota Hattori, dressed in purple joker clown makeup, pulled out a long knife with her right hand without expression and began to slash people in the carriage.
The passengers around the killer, the first to see his atrocities, immediately scattered and tried to escape. But according to interviews with survivors of the 5 carriages that escaped, a woman of twenty generations said that because the carriages were too crowded, she could not move herself no matter how she squeezed, and she was very desperate.
At this time, the passengers standing in the outer circle of the same carriage had not yet figured out the situation, thinking that Hattori Kyota was holding a Halloween prop machete, just to have fun, so he performed on the train. In a moment of despair, a 21-year-old woman sitting in a farther seat screamed loudly when she saw the blood on the knife, which made the passengers in the carriage react to what they were going through.
(Batman Joker stills)
"He was expressionless and emotionless and started chopping people and pouring gasoline like a robot, and everyone became quite frightened."
Almost immediately, the passengers of carriage 5 began to flee towards the two carriages, while Kyota Hattori continued to chase the passengers fleeing to the 6th, 7th, and 8th cars with no expression. A 72-year-old man, who is also the most seriously injured of the current 17 victims, is still in a coma.
Worse is yet to come, according to witnesses to passengers in carriages 5, 6, 7 and 8, the killer took out a bottle while slashing people and spilled it wildly, and the pungent smell of gasoline filled the carriage.
After sprinkling gasoline, he also threw a liquid suspected of sulfuric acid at the fleeing passengers. A couple in the back compartment recalled to reporters that 20 passengers frantically fled to the carriage where they were and shouted "Run!" "The couple had not yet figured out the situation, the murderer had rushed ahead of them, and her husband immediately pulled her to escape, but his feet were already burned with liquid.
At this time, Hattori Kyota ignited the gasoline in the carriage, and the fire quickly spread from the 5th car, and billowing black smoke sneaked into the other carriages, and some passengers had black marks on their masks. The Tokyo Shimbun interviewed a male passenger at the scene who said he heard a banging sound and looked back at all the smoke and fire.
Everything happened so fast that the passengers in the back compartment reacted for a while before pressing the emergency brakes to stop the tram. At 8:13 p.m., the tram finally stopped at the National Consulate Station. But the fatal thing is that I don't know if the fire caused the door to run out of control, and it didn't open for half a day, and the terrified passengers could only squeeze in the narrow window and scramble to flip out of the car.
After the train stopped, Kyota Hattori initially tried to flip out of the window, but without success, he fell on the shoulder. So he simply did not flee, expressionless, and even sat in the carriage "leisurely", took out a cigarette and watched the terrified passengers flee for their lives.
A passenger named Takahashi uploaded a video taken through the window of the carriage after escaping. The passenger wrote: "This is the criminal on the Keio line, lighting a cigarette in his right hand and a knife in his left hand, while my hand is shaking." He made me sick. Desperate to escape, I told everyone to escape from the window. I really want to beat you up, never forgive! ”
After the police arrived, on the way to evacuate the passengers, a passenger took this picture: when the three police officers entered the carriage to arrest Hattori Kyota, he did not resist in the slightest and was very cooperative.
Japanese media reported that Hattori Kyota explained his motives to the police: "I want to kill a person and then be sentenced to death." I think if I kill two or more people, I'll be sentenced to death. It's like the case of the Oda Line. ”
He referred to the Odakyu Line case referring to an indiscriminate incident in which a 36-year-old man stabbed 10 passengers with a knife at Yusuke Ma on the evening of August 6 this year, causing serious injuries to one of the 20-year-old female passengers.
At that time, the killer fled the scene of the accident and was arrested at a convenience store an hour and a half later. He said that he "has long wanted to kill a lot of people in the tram, I can't get used to couples and women, and when I see them happy, I want to kill her." Saying these words to Yusuke Ma, the cold-blooded look on his face while sitting in the police car made many Japanese people angry.
Just two months later, Kyota Hattori, another killer who "imitated" him, appeared. But Hattori's motives may be even more infuriating. Killing for the sake of killing, killing for the sake of death, not only setting fires to cut people, but also putting on clown suits to try to "beautify" and leave memory points.
Japanese society, which has always given the impression of social stability, has had many eye-catching incidents of lone wolf-style malicious killings and injuries in recent years.
In 2016, in Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, a 26-year-old male Uematsu Seiji, a former employee of the Disabled Welfare Institute, killed and injured the disabled and employees in the hospital with a knife, injuring 26 people and killing 19 people.
In 2018, Ichiro Kojima, a 22-year-old unemployed man, killed a male passenger with a knife and injured two female passengers in their 20s on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka Station.
In May 2019, Ryuichi Iwasaki, a 51-year-old Kawasaki city man, attacked 17 elementary school students and two adults with knives near Nobori Station in Tama Ward, killing an 11-year-old girl and a 39-year-old parent and injuring many others. The killer was later found to have committed suicide at home.
In July 2019, Shinji Aoba, 41, committed the Kyoto Animation arson murder that shocked Japan and the world, killing 36 people and injuring 35 others.
Under the Japanese judicial system, some of these lone wolf-like, deliberate, or random murderers are sentenced to life imprisonment (Ichiro Kojima), and some are sentenced to death and not executed immediately after being sentenced to death (Seijima). Shinji Aoba, like the Kyoto Animation arson case, was judged to be in a physical condition to be unable to support the trial because of severe burns after the arson, and the date of the first public judgment was delayed.
Brutal indiscriminate homicide, deliberate homicide, and lengthy, even "humane" trials have all caused indignation and anxiety in Japanese society. And similar to these two imitation cases this year, which are only two months apart, will they ignite the "killing fire" of unstable elements? It is not easy to cut off "hatred" from the source.