The Aichi stand-off: What the hell is going on?
As I am posting this, the stand-off with a stand-off between police and a gunman in Aichi Prefecture has entered its 24th hour. So far, it’s been a horribly embarrassing event for the police involved.
It all started yesterday, when a former gangster shot his children. The wounded were successfully evacuated, but when the cops tried to arrest the man, he opened fire. The police retreated and called for back up, but one officer could not retreat, as he had been shot and was lying wounded on the sidewalk next to the house.
Most of the networks were covering the event live. When I saw them switch to coverage of the wounded officer, I was expecting that there would soon be a rescue attempt by his comrades. After all, what police force would huddle behind cover for hours, leaving one of their own writhing on the pavement with a gunshot wound? I was wrong. The police in this case did exactly that: they left that guy out on the pavement until late last night, when they finally made an attempt to rescue him:
A Japanese policeman died on Friday after being shot by a gunman who had earlier injured his son and daughter and taken a woman hostage.
In the latest shoot-out to rattle tranquil Japan, the policeman was shot as he rescued a colleague who had also been shot by the gunman, a former gangster.
The policeman died a few hours later, a police official said, but the condition of the rescued officer was not life-threatening. The son and daughter were taken to hospital.
According to media reports, the police made no attempt to return fire. I understand the desire not to hit the hostage in the crossfire, but when the gunman literally kills a policeman who is attempting to rescue another policeman the same gunman had wounded, isn’t it about time to start defending yourselves?
About an hour and a half ago, the man finally freed his hostage:
National broadcaster N-H-K showed the woman _ identified as Michiko Mori _ walking out of the house in Nagakute city west of Tokyo, before a police agent in riot gear hoisted her on his back and carried her to safety. As they carried her from the home, police surrounded her with shields, but there were no reports of further gunshots.
The man, Hisato Obayashi, apparently was still holed up in the house.
Alright. So now the criminal is by himself. There should be nothing stopping the police from quickly storming in to take down this murderer…..
And here we are about 2 hours. The police are huddling behind shields and don’t appear to making any moves towards the house. It looks like they might be going for the same strategy used by police in a similar situation in Tokyo a few weeks ago, a strategy which I like to call “sitting around and waiting for the gunman to shoot himself.”
This is hardly the best strategy for such a situation. It involves evacuating the neighborhood and canceling at classes at one university, six municipal nursery schools, and seven elementary and junior high schools in the town for the duration. Those residents who can’t find a place to stay are spending the night in a local gymnasium. Meanwhile, the police force continues to mobilize a gigantic force to surround the house. Waiting for the criminal to surrender of kill himself avoids the immediate risk that would be incurred if the police were to storm the house, but is that how this situation should be handled? It is the job of police to arrest criminals, and the fact that a criminal has a pistol shouldn’t change the situation into one where police simply surround the house of an armed criminal and try to wait for days hoping that the criminal will turn himself in. Every hour is another chance that the criminal could fire a lucky shot and kill or wound an officer, yet the Aichi police continue their passive siege.
Am I the only one out there scratching my head and wondering what the hell is going on?
Update: Shortly before 9PM tonight, the criminal came out and surrendered. It only took scores of heavily-armed policemen about 30 hours of surrounding his house, evacuating the whole neighborhood, and waiting around for him to turn himself in…
