Satoshi Uematsu, 26, broke into a care facility for the mentally disabled and elderly on Tuesday night and went on a stabbing rampage, killing 19 people and leaving more than 20 injured.
Various news outlets are saying this is one of the worst mass killings in Japan since World War II.
The attack took place in in Sagamihara, a town right outside of Tokyo, at the Tsukui Yamayuri-en hospital. The Kanagawa Prefectural officials reportedly revealed in a news conference that Uematsku was employed at the health center between 2012 and February 2016, but that he left “for personal reasons.”
Additionally, USA Today disclosed that the 26-year-old was hospitalized back in March because he was supposedly a threat to the safety of others after he hand-delivered a letter to a member of the House of Representatives saying he was planning to kill people in the care center.
From USA Today:
According to police, Uematsu delivered a handwritten letter to the official residence of the House of Representatives speaker in February, at about the time he left his job, in which he suggested that he was planning to kill people at the facility.
He indicated the attack would take place at night, when fewer staff were on duty.
“I dream of a world where the disabled could die in peace,” Uematsu wrote in the letter. “I will carry out the plan without hurting the staffers, and I will turn myself in after I kill the disabled.”
In the letter, he said he felt “sorry” for people with disabilities, many of whom were bound to wheelchairs for life. He wrote that many of them had no contact with family members.
Uematsu reportedly told law enforcement that “It’s better that the disabled disappear.”
“I did it,” he said.
He wore his bloodstained clothes and reportedly still had a bag full of knives and other tools, some of which were covered in blood when he entered the station. Nothing stopped him -- not even Japan’s rather strict gun laws.
From The Blaze:
Japanese law, however, starts with the 1958 act stating that “No person shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords,” later adding a few exceptions. In other words, American law is designed to enshrine access to guns, while Japan starts with the premise of forbidding it.