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Knife-wielding attacker kills eight, injures dozens at Japanese school
( 2001-06-08 14:59 ) (7 )

School children weep on the grounds of Ikeda elementary school in Osaka June 8, 2001 after fleeing from their classrooms. Seven Japanese children were killed and more than 20 others injured by a man who burst into their classroom at the school and began stabbing at random on Monday. [Reuters]

In Japan's worst mass-killing since a deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways six years ago, a man brandishing a knife burst into a schoolroom on Friday and slashed 29 people, killing at least eight children and shocking the nation.

The 37-year-old attacker was subdued by two male teachers and arrested immediately after the stabbings in the western city of Osaka. He once worked as a janitor at a different elementary school in a nearby city, and has an arrest record.

Two of the children stabbed died at the scene and the other six died at the hospital, said local Fire Department spokesman Tetsuo Higashimoto. Most of the wounded -- all of them children except for three teachers -- suffered minor cuts, but six were in serious condition.

"We are filled with anger over this unfortunate situation," said Kaoru Nakatani, head of Osaka Education University, which operates the elementary school.

The slashing was the deadliest mass assault in Japan has suffered since a doomsday cult attacked the Tokyo subways in 1995, killing 12 people and sickening thousands. There have been at least two cases of four people being stabbed to death over the past year.

Most of the victims on Friday were first- or second-grade students. Children in those grades are usually six and eight years old. Six of the dead were second-grade girls, but the ages of the other victims were not immediately known.

Police said the attacker, identified as Mamoru Takuma, carried a kitchen knife with a 15-centimeter (six inch) blade. He was arrested at the scene, but was also injured and taken to a local hospital.

It was not immediately clear what motivated the crime, though NHK and other Japanese media reported the attacker may have taken a high dose of tranquilizers before the attack. Nearly 700 children attend the school.

Takuma was arrested in March 1999 and accused of spiking the tea of four teachers with tranquilizer at the school where he worked, but he was never prosecuted because he suffered from psychological problems, said Nobuharu Sugita, an official with the police in Itami, a city near Osaka.

Media reports in the confused hours after the school attack depicted a terrifying scene.

National broadcaster NHK said the attacker climbed into a first-grade classroom from a verandah and began slashing children in the back of the room, and then moved into the hallway.

Several children were slashed in their sides and arms as he moved into other classrooms, it said. As the attacker tussled with two teachers, school officials called the police and rushed the children out to the school playground. Ambulances sped onto the campus and rescue workers and police rushed to care for the injured.

The stabbings, during a morning recess period, come as Japan is grappling with an upswing in violent crime. The country's strict gun laws mean most of the attacks -- like Friday's -- are being committed with knives.

"This kind of thing should never happen," said Education Minister Atsuko Toyama. "Schools should be places where children can feel safe and secure."

School and juvenile violence have been rising in recent years, punctuated by a series of sensational crimes -- a shock for a country that has long enjoyed lower crime rates than other developed nations.

As Friday's case showed, the guard against such attacks at Japan's schools is still low. It is considered a rite of passage in Japan for elementary-age children -- even six-year-olds -- to walk to school by themselves rather than be accompanied by adults.

But the security that the system was built is on evaporating.

A 7-year-old boy playing in a schoolyard in the western Japanese city of Kyoto was fatally stabbed by a teen-age assailant in December 1999. In August last year, a teen-ager was arrested for stabbing to death three members of a neighbor's family.

In the 1995 subway attack, members of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult spread deadly sarin gas on trains converging in central Tokyo. Several cult members have been convicted, and guru Shoko Asahara is on trial for that attack and other crimes.