Police officer recounts fatal rampage in Akihabara 17 years on
With Sunday having marked the 17th anniversary of a stabbing rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara district that left seven dead and 10 injured, Tokyo police officer Akihiro Okuda recalls "It was an event that made me think deeply about the lives of surviving victims after the incident."
The stabbing happened shortly after 12:30 p.m. on June 8, 2008. At that time, Okuda, now a superintendent at Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), was playing soccer with his son near his home because the day was a Sunday and he was off work. Upon learning of the incident from a phone call from his boss, he rushed to the MPD's Manseibashi police station, where an investigation headquarters had been set up to cover the rampage.
During the incident, the culprit, Tomohiro Kato, rammed a truck into a holiday pedestrian zone near Akihabara Station, hitting several pedestrians before randomly stabbing others with a knife. Kato's death sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in February 2015, and he was executed in July 2022.
After the deadly rampage, the MPD established the first task force dedicated to supporting the survivors and bereaved families of crime victims. The task force was comprised of a total of 44 police officers.
Okuda stayed at the police station for three days after the incident, setting up a waiting room for bereaved families and transporting them to and from hospitals.
He also accompanied bereaved relatives to a morgue that was set up nearby. Some of them broke down in tears. One woman lost her husband in the Akihabara attack and stood crying bitterly next to her young son, Okuda recalled, adding "I couldn't find a word to say."
Later, Okuda took charge of the process of paying crime victim benefits to one temporary worker in his 20s who was stabbed by the attacker and seriously injured.
After the incident, the man quit his job and shut himself in his house in Tokyo. Okuda repeatedly visited his house for benefit payment procedures, but the man consistently refused to meet Okuda.
Okuda thought that the man must have been "scared of meeting people" and would "remember the incident as long as he lives in Tokyo."
Okuda contacted the man's parents in Hiroshima Prefecture, believing that it would be better for him to rebuild his life at the parents' home.
Partly because of the parents' efforts to persuade their son, the man returned to his hometown in Hiroshima home about a year after the incident. Months later, the man's parents expressed gratitude to Okuda, saying that their son had started making efforts to find a job thanks to him.
From time to time, Okuda wondered how the man was doing. But he stopped short of contacting him so as not to remind him of the incident.
Okuda is now working to pass on his experience offering support to victims of crime by speaking to young officers at police stations and police academies across the country.
"I want to tell them about the importance of supporting crime victims so that they can find hints for future paths," Okuda said.
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