Gunman kills himself after police refuse to return fire
Yesterday’s news coverage was dominated by the story of police surrounding two gunmen who had met each other on the net robbed a pachinko parlor. One man quickly surrendered to police, while the other spend 8 hours unsuccessfully attempting to convince police officers to shoot him:
Ken Kaneko, 55, died at a hospital after threatening police with a handgun and tossing smoke canisters and 10,000-yen bills at them. The incident forced the emergency evacuation of 130 households, police said.
[...]
The incident started when police investigating a robbery at a pachinko parlor in the nearby city of Konosu early Tuesday tried to question passengers in a silver sedan around 1:30 a.m. at a stoplight on National Highway 16 in Kawagoe.
A man in the car shot at a police officer but missed. The car sped away and was found parked 11/2 hours later in the Imaizumi residential district about 750 meters southeast of JR Minami-Furuya Station, police said.
Hasebe surrendered to police and was arrested on suspicion of obstructing police duties. He told police that Kaneko prodded him to get out of the vehicle.
But Kaneko refused to leave the vehicle. He taunted police, daring them to shoot him, and occasionally pointed his gun out the window.
He also shouted that he wanted to die or that his life had ended.
Shortly after 11:40 a.m., he shot himself in the head as police swept in to arrest him.
Hundreds of people were forced to flee their homes for hours, and local businesses and schools could not operate because police refused to fire upon a man who was clearly threatening the lives of other people with a firearm. Watching the news coverage of the stand-off filled me with a frustration similar to what I felt when I saw videos from police actions in 1992, 2007 and a recent training exercise.
When a criminal is pointing a loaded handgun at police officers and threatening them, those officers should be allowed to fire upon the criminal, and in cases where a criminal has already fired shots at police, officers should be encouraged to defend themselves. If they had shown this kind of sense yesterday, the incident would have probably ended hours earlier, and the gunman might have even survived to face trial for his crimes.
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If you ask me human life is more important than a few hours of wasted time, even if it’s the time of hundreds of people being wasted.
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ダビ, what about the human life of the officers and civilians who the gunman was putting in mortal danger? That’s what James was talking about.
If it was just about “wasted time,” I don’t think anyone would disagree with you, but it’s not.
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Indeed. The man had already fired on police, and could have easily killed one of the officers. The criminal already showed a huge disregard for human life, so I don’t see a reason why the police should have taken their time and exposed themselves to mortal danger. Police officers need to value human life, but that doesn’t mean they should not defend themselves when their own lives are threatened.
The 2007 Aichi incident ended with a dead officer and another wounded – all because police refused to return fire.
You know, i don’t know where you’re from, but i’m glad that Japan police officers doesn’t happily shoot anyone unless they really need to. And not, in this case it wasn’t neccesary. Maybe wherever you live everybody thinks like you. Thank you very much, but i’ll rather prefer to live in Japan that in your country.
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I agree, it was a difficult situation, he was inside the car and a shot from the police would probably be fatal. I guess the police thought that if the guy is to die, regardless of who shoots him, it might just be better to work around and try to take him alive.
Also, he only had a handgun, the police tried to approach him with shield and heavy body armor, so the risk wasn’t that big, although still very risky, I think it was worth the effort and the decision to try for a better outcome than just shooting the guy. If he had a AK-47, I doubt they would have tried this.
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This proves yet again the things you can get away with (at least temporarily) when you have a gun in Japan are boundless.
Nobody wants to be responsible for shooting so they keep on tossing the decision up the chain of command, which is a great way of temporizing, all the while hoping the guy gives himself up.
Fortunately for the officers, this dude killed himself, which spared the police of any risk or difficult decisions.
Now if some knife-wielding maniac burst out from cargo containers, I’m sure the authorities would have been all over the guy in a matter of seconds
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aint mmany pachinko parlors ruled by yakuza? maybe he would have ben killed by the yakuza after the robbery^^
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Thank christ the Japanese aren’t as trigger happy as the bloody Yanks! Who was that man killed on his bucks night? Something like 52 shots fired?
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In Los Angeles if you point your gun at cops surrounding, they will unload their weapon without second thoughts!
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