U.S. military brats suspected in case of biker nearly killed by a rope
November 24th, 2009 by James
Remember the case from September of a moped-riding woman who fractured her skull after colliding with a rope that had been strung across a road Mushashimurayama City, Tokyo? Police investing the initial reports of “suspicious young foreigners” at the scene of the incident have examined surveillance video footage and concluded that four foreign children from the nearby U.S. Yokota Air Base may be to blame:
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Hmmmmmm……. any Yanks out there care to comment?
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Yank here!
I think there are a-holes all over the world. Before I came to live in Japan I found many a-holes from all over the world right in Los Angeles (my hometown). Now that I live in Tokyo I still find a-holes.
So, in regards to this story I think they should be prosecuted, taken to court and if found guilty punished and then sent back to the USA.
Any non Yanks out there care to comment?
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My comment is not displaying, and I work on Yokota. Mod?
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Another Yank here, ya wank. haha
yea, when I was “5 to 8 years old”, I never thought of doing anything this messed up. These kids have some problems and I think they’ll be looking at the inside of a juvenile detention center after their parents whoop their asses. Personally, I’m surprised it was the Air Force, I would expect that out of the Marines.Even more surprised that it was 4 elementary school GIRLS, I mean holy crap. Anyway, shitty kids all over the world, but man if they are pulling this kind of crap at that age, who knows what they will be doing in the future, they need to go to juve. I mean, what kid in their right mind pulls this kind of crap for fun? Thats just insane. Evil little girls man… goes against the shojo image.
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The news reporter of the second video clip says those kids are boys and girls aged between 15-18 years old, not 5-8. They are high school kids.
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lol, yea i just listened again, definitely said 15 to 18, whoops! makes more sense now
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Stupidity does NOT resonate with a particular service; instead its embedded within a fool’s heart. Your assertion that only Marines or their family members would be guilty of such a crime is as stupid as the crime itself.
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Investigate them, and iff they are guilty, throw the book at them. Then deport them. Stupid bastards.
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Change the SOFA so that children can’t go to Japan.
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Good luck staffing all of the bases in Japan as unaccompanied tours.
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Children who spend much time lying on the sofa can be at the risk of obesity instead. An uncomfortable sofa is better for their health. They should play outside.
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They need to change the SOFA so that no American soldier, dependents, or bases remain in Japan. The war ended more than 60 years ago. The occupation needs to end. Go home greedy Americans!
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Actually I just learned about SOFA myself so I understand the confusion. There would be no need to change, or even to have a SOFA agreement if there was no US base in Japan. So you couldn’t change it in that way.
Also the bases in Japan are not considered occupation since they are not controlling the country or using force to remain there.
I’m not sure on this point as far as greed, I don’t think anyone is actually making money from the bases except for perhaps the business that profit from them.
here is a link to a more in depth explanation of what SOFA is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_Forces_Agreement .
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I work at Yokota, and have heard nothing of this. My initial reaction is this is typical Japanese xenophobia — you must admit they love blaming someone else for the wrongs of the world and society. This happens all of the time to the folks down in Okinawa, where a Japanese woman claims rape and then later recants after the tough questions start getting asked. I suppose it was only a matter of time before it came here.
Musashimurayama is indeed east of the base, but not so close that four unaccompanied kids would be screwing off out there on their own at 11:30 at night (since they would have to travel by foot, and must come back on base through a guarded gate). Additionally, THERE IS A CURFEW on Yokota, and those kids would have been detained until their parents came and got them when coming back through the gate. Simple solution: check with the Yokota Security Forces to see if a group of four youths was detained that night around that time frame.
I think it’s more likely likely that they happened to film some Yokota kids out there that day and are simply using the traditional method of Japanese investigation: blame someone else.
That said, I can guarantee you that if it does turn out that Yokota kids were involved, it’s going to be a total nightmare for not only them (deportation for them AND their families is only the smallest portion of their troubles), but every other child on base. You can expect the crackdown to be merciless; the military does not tolerate anything that damages its reputation.
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“This happens all of the time to the folks down in Okinawa, where a Japanese woman claims rape and then later recants after the tough questions start getting asked.”
How often does that happen?
You are not talking about cases like these, are you?
Japan Drops Charges Against Okinawa Marine
http://www.japanprobe.com/2008/03/01/japan-drops-charges-against-okinawa-marine/
Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Brown_Okinawa_assault_incident
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Surprisingly informative. Thank you.
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Sorry but your answer is not informative.
How often does such cases as you described happens in Okinawa?
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According to the actual Marines I work with, who actually worked in Okinawa, and have actual experience with the women and accusations common there, it occurs much more often than you see real charges, actual charges brought against a Marine for the same accusation. The difference is that the recanters rarely, if ever, get play in the news, because the issue is dropped over the course of days, as opposed to months, and the women complain to the base’s military police (instead of Japanese police, which could land them in trouble) in an attempt to get the serviceman in trouble as revenge for a bad breakup / whatever.
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Well, it is not common the Japanese women accuse the Japanese men, for that matter, foreign men in Japan, of rape as revenge for a bad breakup/whatever.
I wonder what’s happening to the Japanese women in Okinawa who date with the Marines.
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Truely surprisingly informative…
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Ah, my previous comment was not reply to ponta. His comment stacked onto a spam filter for a while?
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My initial reaction to this comment is this is typical Japanophobia — you must admit you love blaming Japanese for the wrongs of…
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My initial reaction to this is that it’s a troll trying to get attention.
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Hey pixel_bomber, I take it as your full agreement on Jonsan’s opinion.
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No I said he sounded like a troll trying to get attention…
Generally that means I think he is saying things designed to provoke a response from people.
Anyway, just my opinion.
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dammit…. you just trolled me didn’t you…
it’s 2:30 am I’m a little slower than usual.
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pixel_bomber,
Ah, sorry, I was confused on how to interpret “this” as I was preparing for a fight with you in another thread.
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Well Jonsan, since the news report says it has already been determined the 4 youths are indeed are from Yokota, and that it has further been determined specifically who the 4 youths are, and that the cops are going to make a case of attempted murder next week, I would say that a check has already been run with the Yokota military police. Whichever parents of theirs are military members have just seen their careers come to a screeching halt. Hope they like Big Chicken Dinners.
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Does it really state that they’ve positively ID’d the four and are certain they were responsible? That’s not mentioned at all in the article.
If that’s true, however, you’re right — they’ve screwed not only themselves, but their parents. Even non-military employees will be sent home (and possibly barred forever from working contracts on DOD facilities, etc) based on something like this. Yokota base leadership is already extremely deferent to the Japanese host government; in fact, they recently just put forth a policy that denies access to ANYONE (guest, family member, etc) who does not have overseas health insurance because two people in the base’s history did not pay for a doctor’s appointment at a Japanese practice.
I can assure you that if these allegations prove true, the response will be legendary.
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“Does it really state that they’ve positively ID’d the four and are certain they were responsible? That’s not mentioned at all in the article.”
It is covered in the second video link – four youths, boys and girls, aged 15 to 18, all from Yokota. Charges coming down as early as next week. This is also confirmed in the Asahi article (in English) linked to below. You may now begin apologizing for:
“this is typical Japanese xenophobia — you must admit they love blaming someone else for the wrongs of the world and society.”
“I think it’s more likely likely that they happened to film some Yokota kids out there that day and are simply using the traditional method of Japanese investigation: blame someone else.”
And while you are at it, you might learn to show some respect for your host country.
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Idiots! I say punish them and send them back home…As an American (with no kids) living in Japan, it’s sad they did this because we all look bad, even those of us who conduct ourselves with respect for the culture we are lucky enough to experience. They really screwed their parent’s military career, as well as almost killing someone. I imagine they thought it would be a funny prank because they saw it on Youtube or some $hit…I hope that lady gets a decent gomenasai.
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Agreed. Things like this make every American in Japan look bad — most especially those in the military or living near a base.
Having said that, as a whole, the US Government is very forthright in doing whatever it can to resolve private wrongs that it gets involved in. If it’s proven, Yokota itself will probably compensate the woman (in addition to making sure any legal award is collected from the parents, as well, once they get back home) as a goodwill measure.
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Statements like these makes every American in Japan look bad-most especially those in the military or living near a base. I happen to be a Japanese living near a military base. I’ll excuse the others, but you really sound stupid.
“My initial reaction is this is typical Japanese xenophobia — you must admit they love blaming someone else for the wrongs of the world and society.”
” This happens all of the time to the folks down in Okinawa, where a Japanese woman claims rape and then later recants after the tough questions start getting asked”
“I think it’s more likely likely that they happened to film some Yokota kids out there that day and are simply using the traditional method of Japanese investigation: blame someone else.”
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As pixel_bomber said below, I also have no problem believing kids from the US or Japan were involved.
If somebody overgeneralizes and uses this case to smear Americans in Japan, s/he is wrong.
If somebody overgeneralizes Japanese and Okinawa women, facing this allegation, I think s/he is wrong too.
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Uh-oh.
The ‘F’ word.
We all know that the Japanese are the only race/ethnicity in the world absolutely NOT allowed to mention anything in regards to race and whatnot. You know, because they are the most xenophobic and racist country in the world (sarcasm).
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Arudou might have something to say about that.
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Yeah, he’d doubtless agree with Hamachiman, but without the sarcasm.
Question is, would anyone who matters care?
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I have no problem believing kids from the US or any other country (including Japan) were involved. If they have video that is clear enough to show the race then couldn’t they be easily identified? Why not just show the actual video in the clip?
Also it seems like it would be easy to catch these kids if they are from the US base. Don’t they have to go through a guard post? I mean how many kids are out that late at night.
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These suspects were supposed to be underage persons from the early time, I think. Thus, we would not argue on the point like “why nou just show the actual video in the clip?” Also, there are various problems in the criminal investigation due to U.S.–Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA); that is what you should understand before you are going to discuss about crimes by supposedly foreigners near the U.S. military bases.
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Yea I don’t know anything about the SOFA or Japanese law but attempted murder is a pretty serious crime. Even if they simply wanted to locate these people as potential witnesses it seems like it would help. Just seems like saying there is evidence with no follow up is a bit useless. If they have strong evidence but cannot show it why not just act on it. It seems easy enough for the Japanese police to provide the video to law enforcement on base so they can arrest the suspects. They might not be be going to Japanese jail, but they might as well be punished for the crime. If the news report is not going to provide useful facts or help in solving the crime what is the point. I mean maybe the police are acting and it’s just not reported here. I hope they can get to the bottom of it soon.
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Yea, you lack knowledge, ability to gather information, common sense, discernment, and various other thing, at least regarding this particular case, as you have proved by yourself. What you should first admit is that you are talking solely based on your mere imagination and assumption which is sometimes, to speak frankly, ridiculous. Do you want to start your Japanese media silliness theory here again? Isn’t it your true purpose?
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Sorry, you can’t troll me twice in this comments section.
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pixel_bomber,
Are you still watching here? I was a bit confused after I saw your reply to Jonsan made at 2009-11-24 19:35:42. Sorry for my harsh comments.
I enumerate some points here:
1. It is very unusual to make images of an underage person (a minor) who are possibly involved in a crime, not as a victim, publically available without permission of him/her parents. Actually, it is not usual even when permission is granted. The police withholds the name of suspects and criminals if they were an underage person when they committed a crime. There are some dispute over this issue but this is the current situation of Japan which is a common sense or a basic knowledge regarding the crimes commited by underage persons.
2. You can gather information about SOFA, an agreement made between the U.S. and Japan on 1960, on the internet. It puts restriction on the ability of the Japanese police to investigate crimes and even to question suspects. These restrictions are said to make it difficult to tackle a problem like rape which usually requires an allegation by victims and often enforces hardness to them. I think, a family of military service persons is not an actual subject of SOFA but limitation on investigation within the base perhaps still holds. This fact can be an important part to discern what would happen when suspects are found to be living in a military base.
The above points are well known to Japanese people, at least, who have some interest in social problems. There are, I think, no obvious fault in efforts the Japanese media and police made for this incident.
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Well my comments might have easily been confusing to someone who has a good grasp on this story. I finally found an English version of this story earlier today and it seem there are a lot more details than the two sentences above. I know many people who visit this site have a good grasp of Japanese but unfortunately I am way behind. I do not comprehend the Japanese language enough to follow the video clips above so I was only commenting on the text in the post above. The above text said “concluded that four foreign children from the nearby U.S. Yokota Air Base may be to blame”. This statement seems vague and more like a guess than facts. The longer version of this article in English says that they have in fact already identified and issued warrants for two of the culprits. So based on knowing this I would say that most of my comments were off base as to what the actual story was.
So no worries about the confusion. At least I managed to learn what SOFA was I guess. And I know to never get on your bad side.
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So, you had been talking with assumption that suspects had not yet been captured or even not identified? If so, it was very confusing to me. The only way to understand the sentence “Why not just show the actual video in the clip?” was, to me, to assume that you suggested making the actual video open to the public for some reason, since I knew there were already no need to show the actual video to anyone other than, e.g., judges and attorneys. And I also suspected you had something to say regarding the racial issue. There were my serious misconception and wrong assumption too. I am sorry for my harsh comments.
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if this coverage was baseless, JP police and this TV company would have been in big trouble with US government already. in fact, JP police and media are very sensitive about incidents relate to USFJ.(i think)
on the other hand, US media is like that….
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9144078
i thought that the suspect of the incident was japanese when i glanced the article.
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Here’s an article in English:
Police seek charges for U.S. children
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200911230083.html
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Contrary to someone’s scream on Jap’s xenophobic whatever rant, there are not so much media appearance on this issue compared to other incident with similar degree of impact.
Some additional information from Asahi Shinbun (2009/11/21):
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/1121/TKY200911200529.html
and
An interesting early report on this incident from a gossip oriented news source:
http://www.iza.ne.jp/news/newsarticle/event/crime/295181/
There must be xenophibic screams…
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I blame the Koreans
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Why ???????????
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If it was caused by the kids of some soldiers stationed there they should keelhaul the kids. They’d never do that stupid again.
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Anyone else have a problem with the use of the term “brats” in these headlines? I’m familiar with the term “military brat” and all, but I’ve gotta say, in this context it seems EXTREMELY prejudicial.
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Wow, thanks for the updates.
I stand by my previous statement:
“…they’ve screwed not only themselves, but their parents. Even non-military employees will be sent home (and possibly barred forever from working contracts on DOD facilities, etc) based on something like this. Yokota base leadership is already extremely deferent to the Japanese host government; in fact, they recently just put forth a policy that denies access to ANYONE (guest, family member, etc) who does not have overseas health insurance because two people in the base’s history did not pay for a doctor’s appointment at a Japanese practice.
I can assure you that if these allegations prove true, the response will be legendary.”
If they allegations are true, those kids (and their parents) are absolutely ruined. Can’t say they wouldn’t deserve it, though (the kids). Really a terrible thing to do.
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Do you stand by your previous statements regarding Japanese and Japanese police, or would you care to man up and apologize?
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I understand that the massive demasculinization of common men may make it seem as such, but there is nothing manly about pandering to anonymous masses with reasonless apologies. If one of my statements were actually wrong, I would have considered admitting that, but even in that case, no -apology- would be warranted. That’s the value of freedom.
Perhaps you’ve just been in Japan too long, and come to think that sort of effeminate behavior normal.
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So it seems the Air Farce has lowered its minimum age limit to 12?
OK Johnnie boy, listen up: I don’t know what they teach you Air Farce boys out at Yokota, but in the Marines they taught us, among other things, that being a man meant having the personal integrity to take responsibility for our screw-ups. You stand by your words and deeds when you are right, and you take the heat when you are wrong. Now, if you consider that “effeminate” I double-dog-dare your sky-blue ass to wander onto a Marine base, and walk among real men, and spew that “apologizing for your mistakes is effeminate” garbage out of your suck. See how far that gets you.
Refusing to admit that the racist, xenophobic comments you made were wrong, and refusing to apologize for the error of your ways in shooting off your yap when you didn’t even know the whole story isn’t “manly”, it is childish, immature and puerile. But I would expect nothing else from someone who is nothing more that a frat boy playing soldier and lacks the guts, dignity, honor and integrity to serve in an actual military branch. You are no better than the rotten crotch-fruit that damn near killed a woman outside that country club that you have the audacity to call a “military base”. Get out of my house, zoomie.
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Such a follower! Sad to think that someone who took an oath to defend their country’s freedoms doesn’t understand what they actually mean.
The scandalization in your tone is hilarious — like a woman in hysterics over the audacity of her neighbor’s choice of wardrobe.
You are easy to lead. The Marines must miss you.
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You seriously don’t think that these comments were out of line…?
“My initial reaction is this is typical Japanese xenophobia — you must admit they love blaming someone else for the wrongs of the world and society.”
“I think it’s more likely likely that they happened to film some Yokota kids out there that day and are simply using the traditional method of Japanese investigation: blame someone else.”
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@drw: Apparently he does not. Nor, equally apparently, does he recognize that with freedom comes responsibility. All he recognizes is his freedom to make irresponsible comments, his freedom to belittle anyone who disagrees with him, his freedom to be a complete and unmitigated ass. And he is diligent in exercising his freedoms. But he won’t take responsibility for being wrong, he won’t take responsibility for his words.
If he is indeed in the Air Force, I sincerely hope he is a junior troop relegated to latrine detail. For he should never, ever be put in a position of responsibility, should never be in charge of troops, and should never hold other’s lives in his hands. He clearly lacks the honor, dignity, self-control and integrity required to be in charge of anything more dangerous or complicated than a mop.
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I just heard of this right now, by a friend, who told me that this girl I went to school with was the one being questioned for this,
and all I can say is, she is definitely a trouble maker, and doesn’t surprise mr at all that she would be involved.
I feel bad for that lady I’m glad she is even alive.
Yokota had kids, even airmen themselves who make us look bad towards the Japanese. It makes us the bad guys in their stories if you ask me.
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Ahh so many typos. Sorry. Hope yall get my jist though
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Oh and it is going to suck for their parents of they lived on base because if there kid gets barred, they would have to move too, I think
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U.S. Yokota base did not hand over the kids despite arrest warrant from Japanese police.
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米兵の子１人家裁送致、３人送致見送り ロープ張り事件
2009年12月25日19時31分（朝日）
東京都武蔵村山市の道路に張られたロープでバイクの女性（２３）が転倒し重傷を負った事件で、東京地検立川支部は２５日、米軍横田基地所属の米兵の子の少年少女４人のうち、無職少年（１９）を往来妨害と傷害の非行事実で東京家裁立川支部に送致した。この無職少年が主導的役割を果たしていたことを重くみて送致に踏み切った。１５～１７歳の高校１年の３人は犯行時の役割や年齢を考慮して送致を見送り、同日釈放した。
同地検支部によると、無職少年は８月１３日午後１１時半ごろ、少年少女３人と共謀し、同市内の市道を横断するようにロープを張って往来を妨害し、バイクで通行した女性を転倒させて頭の骨が折れるなどの重傷を負わせたとされる。逮捕容疑は殺人未遂だったが、犯行に至る経緯やその後の行動などから殺意は認定できないと判断したという
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