The Metropolitan Police Department could not get cooperation of the U.S. military and the suspects were still not handed over to Japanese police.

Even if they did not MEAN to kill someone, does not mean their actions couldn’t have caused it. And your argument with not intending to cause harm. A whole point of a PRANK is to cause HARM. It might not be physical, but it is definitely meant to cause some form of harm. And any REASONABLE mind would know that stringing a rope on a dark road is meant to cause some form of harm. A biker might not have been their intent, but it happened. They are every bit as responsible despite that not being their intention.

Ajapa: My reply to you was intended as humor of sorts. The point I was trying to subtly get at was that this is not something you should be scared of. In fact it’s very uncommon to find trip wires on public roads. So of course I was kidding when I said it’s common for gaijin to string up trip wires in the road. While this particular incident is tragic and scary in itself you really don’t need to worry about this happening in my opinion. So please be careful on your bike, but I doubt you will have to worry about tripwires.

But the story you posted was about an accident as opposed to an intentional case…

But the article from Urban Vello is quite relevant in a context of reply to my first comment.

I don’t know if it was actually pixel_bomber though… I think the target was me since I was sometimes in confrontation with pixel_bomber, don’t worry!

pixel_bomber,

My intention in my second comment was simply,

It’s scary when I think of my head being cut off.

I am not an all-gaijin-drug-dealer theorist so, maybe, I may not get the point precisely. Actually, I mentioned on a mere rumor which could make Americans unpleasant (sorry!) but I think I took a balance by writing about facts and rumors regarding the incident happened in Japan too.

What is the intention of your comment above?

The only point I made with my comment is that it is extremely dangerous to tie a rope across a road. The victim of this case near Yokota could have been YOU. Quit this Japanese vs. gaijin nonsense.

If you are just trolling I will never ever take any of your comments seriously from now on.

Bicycle safety is always important but it’s probably best to avoid areas where gaijin might hang out since it’s common practice for them randomly place ropes across a road.

“A police source said: ‘At this stage there is nothing to suggest this wire has been maliciously placed there in order to injure someone.

‘Early investigations reveal the wire may have been used to support a sign reading “Private Road” on it but somehow this has fallen off.”

Probably not a good example to prove your point, just saying.

現場付近は倉庫が立ち並び、街路灯は道路の片側にしかなく、夜間は見通しが悪い。同庁は、ロープが見えにくいため、バイクや自転車が気づかずに引っかかって転倒すれば死亡するおそれがあることを判断できたはずだとして、殺人未遂容疑での立件を目指す。

Around the scene of the incident, there are many warehouses built along the roadway, streetlights are installed only on the one side of it, and there is poor visibility in the nighttime. The [Metropolitan Police] Department are aiming at prosecuting (treating) the case with the suspicion of an attempted murder, claiming that they must be capable of judging the consequence of their attempt that it could cause a death if a biker was caught by the rope without noticing it and then was tumbled.

Me, please stop changing the focus arbitrary and meaninglessly without knowing anything nor inspecting by yourself.

During the war, jeeps had wire cutters welded onto their bumpers so the men riding it won’t have their heads sliced off when driving with the windshield down.

http://www.luxembourg.co.uk/NMMH/show.html

You can google several recent cases of ropes and wires strung across a road or trail.

Prank or no prank, it is extremely dangerous to put a rope across a road. And as you stated somewhere it is as bad as, or even worse than making the stairs of the Yamanote station slippery with oil.

http://urbanvelo.org/albuquerque-cyclists-beware-trip-wires-on-bike-paths/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1036930/First-picture-trail-bike-boy-17-killed-trip-wire-track.html

thank you…. thats all im trying to say

You made a question which could be suggestive of different intent in the very first place:

What if it was a pure and simple accident and they never intended to hurt anyone?

If you were really trying to say that the incident was originally just for a prank, then there could be probably intent to, at least, mentally hurt someone (remenber your reply to someone) since it was a prank to frighten and/or embarrass others!

In the case of Japan, a similar incident happened, causing a death and unresolved in that case, in 25 years ago. It is said that someone living in a nearby area of the scene of the incident got angry with reckless and outrageous bikers and tried to scare off them.

That argument is a massive fail and you know it, but I will rephrase for your benefit. If you drive drunk, there is a high probability that you could seriously hurt someone. It’s a reckless act. If you tie a rope across a road, there is a high probability that you could seriously hurt someone. It’s a reckless act. If you drive sober, the probability of seriously hurting someone is pretty low. It’s not a reckless act.

So again, how aren’t these kids at least as bad as drunk drivers?

However, Me’s insistence that these kids aren’t at least as bad as drunk drivers is ridiculous.

I think it is possible they might somehow believed their prank would not end in someone being terribly injured or killed.

I think most people actually do not completely deny the possibility but in that case their ability of reasonable judgement is highly suspected or they might be in a terrible family environment.

I guess if murder was the desire they would not have stayed on site, or could have easily finished the job after the accident occurred.

The pyromaniacs come back to the scene but they never try to prevent the rescue activity. They might be the same kind of people… They need a treatment either way.

I was actually worried they would be charged with something too light but murder could be too much.

I have an impression that the Japanese police is not very certain on what charge is really adequate for this case. Are they already heard something from the suspects? I personally think they made a bit stronger claim to put a pressure to the military police at the time of these reports.

Get off your high horse. What we all can do is perhaps to try to guess the situation and intent from facts supplied by others. Are you one of those suspects or a close friend?

But there is absolutely nothing that says they didn’t know it would be harmful.

The lighting was probably sufficient for normal driving, but not for such an act of sabotage.

I could buy this not understanding harm could be done thing if we were talking about five year olds, not teenagers.

There is no evidence whatsoever they had no intent.

There is more evidence they did have intent in that they did string up a rope, and the average person does know that is dangerous.

Society considers the risk of a sober driver following the rules on the road acceptable.
Society considers the risk of a drunk driver incapable of following the rules on the road as an unacceptable hazard.

“These people were throwing bricks at cars thats a little more obvious then this case.”

Not at all. Maybe they thought the bricks would bounce off. Maybe they thought that cars came with Star Trek force fields. Maybe they thought the bricks would dissolve into dust on impact. Maybe they thought God told them to. Maybe they were trying to donate spare bricks to random strangers.

Legal discussions often use “reasonable” as an indicator – whether a reasonable assumption would be that they knew it would cause harm, for example. Maybe these people are total nutjobs who think God told them to do it and anyone hitting the rope would be instantly transported to the seventh level of Paradise – but that is not a reasonable assumption, and you’re not likely to get away with trying to claim it. It is emminently reasonable to assume that kids that age had a damn good idea it would cause harm. The burden of proof is thus to show that, for mental or cultural reasons perhaps, they genuinely thought it would not. Perhaps they thought the road was made of soft rubber…

It’s not definitive proof, but it is more likely than them not knowing!

The rest talk about jail time.

For the trial I’m sure it will go based on evidence. If it can be proven that the kids taken in are the ones that did this, then justice should be served.

Can’t avoid a rope strung across a dark road!

Four words: Innocent until proven guilty.

Save your screeching and hooting until after the trial.

The fact is assuming they should have known it would cause harm is more likely than your assumption that somehow they did not know.

And even if your personal and unlikely assumption is somehow true, there is still legal liability for these people.