Former Michelin-star restaurant owner arrested after food poisonings
KYODO NEWS - 10 hours ago - 17:27 | All, Japan
Members of a family who run a formerly Michelin-starred restaurant in western Japan were arrested Monday for ignoring an order to temporarily shut it down after a spate of food poisoning cases, investigative sources said.
Hirokazu Kitano, 69, his son Hirotoshi, 41, and wife Noriko 68, have all been involved in operating traditional Japanese-style restaurant Kiichi in Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture, and are alleged to have violated the Food Sanitation Act.
According to the prefectural government and other sources, the restaurant was handed a two-day business suspension order on Feb. 15 after 33 customers experienced developed symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea following meals at the restaurant or after consuming "bento" boxed meals sold between early and mid-February.
Norovirus was detected in some of the people, which a local public health center determined was linked to food poisoning.
Subsequently, 23 more people who ate at the restaurant between Feb. 22 and 24 fell sick and norovirus was again detected, prompting authorities to order the restaurant to close from March 2. The business prohibition order was lifted at the noon of March 18.
Investigators later found that the establishment had continued to sell bento boxes during the initial suspension order.
According to the sources, the three family members, all residents of Kawachinagano, were arrested for allegedly selling 11 bento boxes to customers on Feb. 16.
They have admitted to the allegation, telling investigators they underestimated the norovirus situation.
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Japan Today
3 hours ago
- Japan Today
Former Michelin-star restaurant owner arrested after food poisonings
Members of a family who run a formerly Michelin-starred restaurant in western Japan were arrested Monday for ignoring an order to temporarily shut it down after a spate of food poisoning cases, investigative sources said. Hirokazu Kitano, 69, his son Hirotoshi, 41, and wife Noriko 68, have all been involved in operating traditional Japanese-style restaurant Kiichi in Kawachinagano, Osaka Prefecture, and are alleged to have violated the Food Sanitation Act. According to the prefectural government and other sources, the restaurant was handed a two-day business suspension order on Feb. 15 after 33 customers experienced developed symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea following meals at the restaurant or after consuming "bento" boxed meals sold between early and mid-February. Norovirus was detected in some of the people, which a local public health center determined was linked to food poisoning. Subsequently, 23 more people who ate at the restaurant between Feb. 22 and 24 fell sick and norovirus was again detected, prompting authorities to order the restaurant to close from March 2. The business prohibition order was lifted at the noon of March 18. Investigators later found that the establishment had continued to sell bento boxes during the initial suspension order. According to the sources, the three family members, all residents of Kawachinagano, were arrested for allegedly selling 11 bento boxes to customers on Feb. 16. They have admitted to the allegation, telling investigators they underestimated the norovirus situation. © KYODO
Japan Today
3 hours ago
- Japan Today
Suspect in Minnesota lawmaker killing visited other legislators' homes, prosecutors say
Flowers and hand-written messages sit at a memorial outside the Minnesota State Capitol in honor of Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, after a gunman killed them, in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S., June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Tim Evans By Nathan Layne The suspect accused of assassinating a Minnesota lawmaker and shooting another this weekend drove to the homes of at least four state politicians as part of a planned killing spree, U.S. authorities said on Monday. Vance Boelter, 57, faces state and federal murder charges after his arrest on Sunday night following a massive two-day manhunt that was the largest in state history. He is accused of fatally shooting Melissa Hortman, the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband Mark, in their home on Saturday. Boelter is also charged with shooting and wounding Democratic lawmaker, state Senator John Hoffman, and his wife Yvette, in their home a few miles away. Prosecutors said on Monday that Boelter visited the homes of two other lawmakers disguised as a police officer, hunting more targets. Investigators said they recovered notebooks from his car and residence that included the names of dozens of Democratic legislators, along with abortion rights advocates. They also revealed that he sent a text to his family hours after the shooting that said in part, "Dad went to war last night." "Political assassinations are rare," Joseph Thompson, Minnesota's acting U.S. attorney, said at a news conference. "They strike at the very core of our democracy." Thompson said a precise motive was not yet clear. Contrary to earlier news reports, authorities have not discovered a "Unabomber-style manifesto," he said. The killings unfolded against a backdrop of increasing political violence in the U.S. in an era of extreme social and political polarization. President Donald Trump was the target of two assassination attempts during his campaign last year, including at a Pennsylvania rally that left him with a wounded ear and killed one bystander. In April, a man broke into the home of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and set it on fire while Shapiro and his family were asleep. Boelter made a brief appearance in St. Paul federal court on Monday to face murder and other charges, which could result in the death penalty. Wearing an orange jumpsuit, he told a judge he understood the charges against him and remained composed throughout the 15-minute hearing. He did not enter a plea and will return to court on June 27. Boelter's court-appointed attorney, Matthew Deates, declined to comment after the hearing. Boelter also faces separate state murder charges in Hennepin County. 'CAMPAIGN OF VIOLENCE' Political tensions were already high on Saturday. Mass protests against Trump's agenda took place across the country, fueled in part by the deployment of U.S. Marines and National Guard troops over immigration protests in Los Angeles and a military parade in Washington on the president's birthday. "Vance Luther Boelter embarked on a planned campaign of stalking and violence, designed to inflict fear, injure and kill members of the Minnesota state legislature and their families," an FBI affidavit unsealed on Monday read. The attacks began around 2 a.m. on Saturday, when a gunman wearing a police-style tactical vest and a "hyper-realistic silicone mask" knocked on the Hoffmans' door in Champlin, announced himself as a police officer and then shot the couple multiple times, according to prosecutors. He was driving an SUV outfitted with police-style lights and a fake license plate that read "POLICE." Boelter then traveled to the home of another state lawmaker in Maple Grove, where he rang the doorbell at 2:24 a.m., Thompson said. The official, whom prosecutors did not name, was not home. Boelter also visited the home of an unnamed state senator in New Hope, prosecutors said. A officer dispatched to the house to check on the senator after the Hoffman shooting saw Boelter parked outside and believed he was another police officer. When Boelter ignored the officer's greeting, the officer went to the door to wait for additional police, Thompson said. Boelter had left by the time they arrived. Shortly after, police went to the Hortmans' house in Brooklyn Park as a precaution. The arriving officers saw the suspect shoot Mark Hortman through an open door around 3:35 a.m. and exchanged fire with him before he fled out the back, according to prosecutors. Melissa Hortman was found dead inside. When police searched Boelter's SUV, they discovered three assault-style rifles, a handgun, a gold police-style badge and a target list, according to authorities. Boelter's notebooks showed he had planned the attacks for some time. He had the names and, in some cases, home addresses for more than 45 elected officials, "mostly or all Democrats," according to the affidavit. In one book, Boelter noted the Hortmans had two children and added surveillance details about their house, writing, "Big house off golf course 2 ways in to watch from one spot," the affidavit said. MASSIVE MANHUNT Boelter's wife and other family members received a text message at 6:18 a.m. that read, "Dad went to war last night... I don't wanna say more because I don't wanna implicate anybody," according to the affidavit. A second text warned them to leave the house because some "armed and trigger-happy" people were coming. Boelter's wife also consented to a search of her car, which turned up two handguns, about $10,000 cash and passports for family members, who were in the car when police came to the house, the affidavit said. Authorities said the investigation would determine if Boelter's wife had any role in, or was aware of, the suspect's plan beforehand. He has five children, according to media reports. Around 7 a.m. on Saturday, Boelter encountered someone at a bus stop in Minneapolis and eventually offered to buy his Buick, according to prosecutors. Investigators on Sunday found the Buick in rural Sibley County about an hour's drive from Minneapolis, near Boelter's listed home address. Inside the car, officers found a handwritten letter to the FBI, in which Boelter gave his name and admitted to the shootings, according to the affidavit. More than 20 SWAT teams combed the area, aided by surveillance aircraft. Boelter, who was armed, crawled from a wooded area and surrendered to police in a field. Minnesota U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar shared on social media a text from Yvette Hoffman on Sunday that said her husband had been shot nine times, while she was shot eight times. "We are both incredibly lucky to be alive," Yvette Hoffman wrote. "We are gutted and devastated by the loss of Melissa and Mark." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Kyodo News
4 hours ago
- Kyodo News
FOCUS:Japan residents with foreign roots raise voices over racial profiling
By Junko Horiuchi, Spotlight Japan - Jun 11, 2025 - 09:41 | All, Spotlight, Japan Residents in Japan with foreign roots have started speaking out about being subjected to racial profiling by police, with some taking the issue to court, but supporters of their efforts warn that progress may be slow given apparent public indifference. Although a survey suggests racial profiling, or questioning by the authorities on the assumption that one is involved in a crime based on race or appearance, has been carried out for years, only recently has the issue been publicly exposed in Japan. "I am not saying Japanese police should not question citizens, including those with foreign appearance, whatsoever but I want to know the logic behind it," said Zain Syed, a 27-year-old naturalized Japanese citizen. Born to Pakistani parents, Syed has been stopped by police on the street at least 15 times. Syed said that whenever he had challenged officers on their reasons for stopping him, they insisted he was being treated no differently to anyone else. But convinced that he had been targeted solely based on his ethnicity, Syed decided to join a lawsuit. The idea behind resorting to legal action is to pressure the government to prevent discriminatory interrogations. Syed, who is self-employed and lives in the suburbs of Nagoya in central Japan, is one of three male plaintiffs in a civil suit filed in January 2024 against the Aichi prefectural police, Tokyo metropolitan police and the state, seeking 3.3 million yen ($22,850) in damages per person. The response to his Twitter post in 2019 describing police treatment, such as being asked persistently to present a foreign resident's card or passport despite identifying himself as a Japanese, also emboldened him to sue and help others in a similar or worse situation than him. "I am trying to make Japanese society better by stopping questioning based on prejudice. There are many people like myself with foreign roots who are willing to make contributions to Japan," said Syed, who came to Japan at age 8 from Pakistan along with his parents and received Japanese nationality at the age of 13. But his acquisition of citizenship is a rare step in Japan, a country whose naturalized citizens accounted for less than 0.01 percent of the total population in 2024. A recent survey carried out by lawyers in the suit backs the plaintiffs' view that the stopping and questioning of those with foreign appearances often lacks the existence of "sufficient probable cause" to suspect the person has committed or is about to commit a crime -- the requirements set out under the Police Duties Execution Act. The survey, released in February 2025, found that over 71 percent of foreign nationals in Japan had been questioned by police on the streets in the past five years, a rate around 5.6-fold higher than for Japanese. The questionnaire, the first of its kind comparing police questioning of foreign nationals and Japanese, drew answers from 521 Japanese and 422 foreigners who have lived in Japan for five years or more, excluding those from the Northeast Asian region apparently due to their similar appearances to Japanese. The difference in the frequency of being targeted for street questioning came despite the crime rate between Japanese and foreigners being roughly the same, the lawyers said, citing an analysis using official government data. According to Justice Ministry statistics, out of 182,582 people in Japan investigated by the police in 2020 for suspected Penal Code offenses, 9,529 were foreigners. With the total population in the country, including foreigners, in that year standing at 123.35 million and non-Japanese at 6.34 million, the ratio of people subjected to criminal probes was 0.15 percent for both Japanese and foreigners in Japan, the analysis showed. In January 2021, advocacy group Japan for Black Lives posted on social media a video which showed a police officer saying "in our experience many people with dreadlocks carry drugs" when questioning a mixed-race man at a station in Tokyo. The post became viral. The group's founder, Naomi Kawahara, said she could not just stand by to watch her friend being subjected to groundless questioning just because of his appearance. She added the recorded incident is only one among many experienced by her friend and other foreign-born acquaintances. On Dec. 6 of the same year, the U.S. Embassy in Japan tweeted a warning to U.S. citizens about foreigners being stopped and searched by Japanese police in suspected racial profiling incidents. The National Police Agency issued an advisory the same month to all prefectural police forces to avoid questioning people in a way that could be perceived as racially motivated. The written advisory read that when choosing who to stop and question, police officers "should not base their decisions solely on how they look, such as appearance and clothing." In November 2022, the agency's first-ever internal survey on the issue of racial profiling confirmed six inappropriate cases across four prefectural police forces in 2021, involving officers who stopped people giving reasons such as "It is rare for a foreigner to drive a car" or "People with dreadlocks have possessed drugs." In a move to enhance transparency of police questionings, police officers have started wearing body cameras on a trial basis to record interrogations in public spaces. Maurice Shelton, an African American man from Georgia who wears his hair in dreads and is another plaintiff in the suit, recounted how he had been interrogated by police at least 17 times since first coming to Japan in 2010. "Just because you look a certain way, does that mean you can be stopped randomly by the police?" the 42-year-old CEO of a personal training gym in Kanagawa Prefecture said. "Is that something that I should have to deal with because I'm a foreigner, or because I'm a black person, or because I have darker skin, or because I have this hair?" He cited as one of his motivations to join the suit the similar treatment he said he experienced in Georgia and which made him leave his country. "I've been harassed by the police in America. I've had guns pulled on me by the police," he said. "I don't want Japan to be such a place." Motoki Taniguchi, one of the lawyers representing the three plaintiffs, said in one court hearing, "Racial profiling is intentional racial discrimination exercised by public authorities and constitutes the most pernicious form of discrimination." "It is the responsibility of the court to confirm the illegality of such a practice and to put an end to it," Taniguchi said. Prospects for change, however, were muddied recently by comments by the justice minister when explaining a step to introduce pre-arrival screening for visa-free travelers from fiscal 2028 and other measures to strengthen the immigration system. "The government is being strongly urged to take action as public anxiety is growing against foreigners not following rules," Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki said last month, in comments that were viewed as potentially encouraging discriminatory attitudes. According to Japan for Black Lives' Kawahara, the recent surge in inbound travelers and the growing discussion of "overtourism" issues, such as problematic behavior by a small minority of visitors, is likely stirring a public she says is largely ignorant of prejudice issues to accept tight surveillance over people with foreign appearances. "Some people say casually that the victims claiming they have been discriminated against are just being paranoid or that they don't see a problem in the police stopping foreigners on the street," she said. "They say, 'Why not let police stop you if you don't have anything to hide'," Kawahara said. "I believe that only by empathizing with people with foreign roots and having dialogue can people really end discrimination," she added. 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