Tomohiro Kato | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Tomohiro KATO

A.K.A.: "The Akihabara Killer"

Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics: Revenge
Number of victims: 7
Date of murders: June 8, 2008
Date of arrest: Same day
Date of birth: September 28, 1982
Victims profile: Six men and one woman
Method of murder: Hitting a crowd with a truck - Stabbing with a dagger
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Status: In prison awaiting trial




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The Akihabara massacre (秋葉原通り魔事件, Akihabara Tōrima Jiken, lit. "Akihabara phantom-killer incident") was an incident of mass murder that took place on Sunday, June 8, 2008, in the Akihabara shopping quarter for electronics, video games and comics in Sotokanda, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. At 12:33 p.m. JST, a man hit a crowd with a truck, eventually killing three people and injuring two; he then stabbed at least 12 people using a dagger (initially reported as a survival knife) killing four people and injuring eight. Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department arrested Tomohiro Katō (加藤智大, Katō Tomohiro?), 25, on suspicion of attempted murder. The suspect, dressed then in a black T-shirt with a jacket and off-white trousers, was a resident of Susono, Shizuoka. He was held at the Manseibashi Police Station. Two days later on June 10, he was sent to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office. He was later re-arrested by the police on June 20 on suspicion of murder. On October 10, 2008, he was indicted. The incident The suspect Katō drove a two-ton rented truck into a crowd at the crossing of Kanda Myōjin-dōri and Chūō-dōri streets in Akihabara. While Kanda Myōjin-dōri was open to traffic, Chūō-dōri was closed to vehicular traffic for the convenience of shopping pedestrians, a practice observed every Sunday and during holidays. Police concluded it was at 12:33 P.M. when he hit five people with the truck, after ignoring a red light earlier that morning. As some people gathered to care for the victims, he then left the truck and stabbed at least 12 people, a witness told, he was screaming. Police chased him, cornered him into a narrow alley, and a police officer pointed a gun at him; he dropped his knife and was held down by the police at 12:35 P.M., about 170 meters (600 ft) away from the truck. The victims At least 17 ambulances rushed to the scene as passersby tried to revive the victims. Five of the victims reportedly went into cardiac arrest at the scene. It was initially reported two people died from the attack, and during the day the death toll increased to seven. Later it was determined through autopsies that three victims died as a result of being hit by the truck while the other four were fatally stabbed. According to police and hospital officials, six of the seven who were killed were men, including Kazunori Fujino and his friend Takahiro Kamaguchi (both 19), Katsuhiko Nakamura (74), Naoki Miyamoto (31), Mitsuru Matsui (33), and Kasuhiro Koiwa (47). A woman, Mai Mutō (21), was also killed. Communication records showed that Mutō probably made an emergency call for police from her mobile phone, though she left no message. Later that day, a makeshift memorial was created by a passersby. Perpetrator Early life and education Tomohiro Katō (加藤智大, Katō Tomohiro?) (born September 28, 1982) grew up in a suburban home in Aomori, Honshu. His father was a top manager in a financial institution. Katō's grades were considered to be exceptional in elementary school and he was a top track athlete. He entered Tsukuda Junior High School and became president of the tennis club in middle school. He started to act violently at home after enrolling at Aomori Prefectural Aomori High School, an elite high school. Katō was unpopular with his classmates and his class academic ranking fell to 300 (of 360 students). He failed entrance examinations for the prestigious Hokkaido University, eventually training as an auto mechanic at Nakanihon Automotive College. He was hired as a temporary worker at an auto parts factory in central Shizuoka Prefecture, though he was recently told that his job was going to be cut at the end of June. Katō reportedly did not get along well with his parents, and seldom returned home. An interview with Katō's brother revealed that his parents had put immense pressure on them to perform, and to excel in their studies, ordering that their homework be redone to standards in order to impress teachers in school and recalling one incident where Katō was made to eat scraps of food from the floor. Another neighbour described Katō being punished by his parents, who made him stand outside for hours in deep cold during winter. Previous online postings before his announcement of the attack contained sharp criticisms towards his own upbringing. Deeply in debt and believing that his family had given up on him, Katō unsuccessfully attempted suicide in 2006 by ramming his car into a wall. Motivations Three days before the attack, on June 5, Katō accused people at his workplace of hiding his work clothes, and left work immediately afterwards. Apparently he believed at this point he was going to lose his job, though this was not actually the case. This may have triggered the attack. The suspect apparently posted messages from his mobile phone to a Web site "Extreme Exchange, Revised", revealing his intentions through his final message via his mobile phone 20 minutes before the attack. A police official stated the first message read, "I will kill people in Akihabara." Other messages he is alleged to have posted include, "If only I had a girlfriend, I wouldn't have quit work," "I would never have become addicted to my mobile phone. Anybody with hope couldn't possibly understand how I feel," and "I don't have a single friend and I won't in the future. I'll be ignored because I'm ugly. I'm lower than trash because at least the trash gets recycled." It also referred to "a stabbing spree in Tsuchiura." Commentators referred to the incident, based on the messages, as another case with the phenomenon of Hikikomori or Internet suicide. Later messages revealed his plan to use a vehicle until it became inoperable, and then to use a knife to continue the attack on foot. He waited out for Chūō-dōri to close at noon to vehicular traffic before commencing the attack. Investigation The suspect Katō was arrested red-handed on suspicion of attempted murder after a police officer spotted him stabbing a woman. On June 10 the police sent him to Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office. The police on June 20 arrested him again on suspicion of murder of the seven victims. On the same day the Prosecutor's Office withheld action on him for the first suspicion. While being positive about his capacity to hold the criminal liability, the Prosecutor's Office decided by June 20 to demand that his detention for a psychiatric test be authorized by the Tokyo District Court. Katō was cooperative during the inquiry but unapologetic, and cried at times. Police seized from his apartment empty packages of knives, their receipts, and one club. Katō erased all contacts and communication records from his mobile phone just prior to the attack, the purpose of which he confessed was to avoid annoying those around him. Katō later said that he posted the online messages hoping that police would take notice and stop him. The knives were reportedly purchased two days before the attack from a military supply shop in Fukui at about 12:40 p.m. Katō spent about 20 minutes in the store, purchasing a telescopic baton and a pair of leather gloves while the store closed-circuit television captured him talking to and laughing with the salesman and demonstrating stabbing motions. Katō came to Akihabara a day before the attack to sell his personal computer and some software to raise money to rent the truck. Reactions and consequences The attack made global headlines and sent shock waves across Japan,[51] shaking public confidence in what is traditionally considered a society safe from violent crime. The Government of Japan is now reviewing laws regulating knives. The Tokyo Metropolitan Public Safety Commission announced that the 35-year old practice of closing Chūō-dōri on Sundays and holidays was to be suspended until safety measures were reviewed. Konami canceled three launch events of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots in Tokyo, with the "safety of participants in mind" as a result of the attack. Katō's parents gave an apology to the victims in a television interview. The massacre also sparked many conversations in Japanese blogs when it was discovered that two Ustream users had broadcast live video streams of the tragedy, attracting a viewership estimated at between 1000 and 3000 people. No recording has been saved of the videos, although the event has been written about in many Japanese blogs and online IT magazines. The current Super Sentai series at the time of the attack, "Engine Sentai Go-onger" (2008) featured transforming daggers as part of the heroes' standard personal sidearms, called Switch Funshaken Rocket Dagger(s) (in reference to their rocket-shaped themes). After the attack, which occurred the day immediately after the Rocket Daggers made their debut in the series, both Bandai [the company that makes the toy versions of the weapons] and Toei [the company that produces the TV series] changed their names to "Switch Funshaken Rocket Booster(s)" and re-designated them as "swords" rather than "daggers" out of respect for the victims of the attack, and to lessen any trauma toward the 6-8yrs audience that the tokusatsu franchise regularly targets. On 17 June 2008, convicted child serial murderer Tsutomu Miyazaki was executed by hanging, which was suspected to be a reaction to Katō's massacre. The media labeled the attacks as a growing epidemic of "kireru" (キレる?), acts of rage committed by Tokyo's alienated youth; others labeled the otaku culture as the answer for its negative stereotype of compulsive, antisocial behavior. Related or similar events The stabbings occurred exactly seven years after the Osaka school massacre, where eight elementary school students were killed. In 2008, there has also been another random knife killing by Masahiro Kanagawa, though on a smaller scale. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who visited the site a week after the massacre to offer prayer to the victims, said that he "is worried that similar cases occur about 10 times a year in Japan." According to the National Police Agency, 67 similar random attacks have taken place between 1998 and 2007. It was reported that Katō's massacre was "the worst case of its kind" since World War II "in terms of the number of deaths." A few days after the attack, police arrested several people who stated their intention to make copycat killings elsewhere in Japan, including one case who made his intentions known to popular message board 2channel. On June 22 three women were injured by a female attacker at Ōsaka Station; a 38-year-old woman later confessed to attacking two of the victims with a razor. A 19-year-old man who made an Internet threat to go on a June 15 stabbing spree at Tokyo Disney Resort was arrested by police. Between June 8 and June 23, 12 people were arrested, and five people warned, for making threatening messages. The 17 people involved in the threats ranged from 13 to 30 years old. On 26 June 2008, police overpowered and arrested a man who was found to have a knife in possession in Akihabara. Wikipedia.org





Akihabara stabbing spree shocks Japan Mainichi Japan June 9, 2008 TOKYO (AP) -- A man plowed into shoppers with a truck and then stabbed 17 people within minutes, killing at least seven of them in a grisly attack that shocked a country known for its low crime rate. The lunchtime violence Sunday in the Akihabara district, a popular electronics and video game area, sent thousands of people fleeing. The assault, which occurred on the seventh anniversary of a mass stabbing at a Japanese elementary school, was the latest in a series of knife attacks that have stoked fears of rising violent crime in Japan. A 25-year-old man, Tomohiro Kato, was arrested with blood on his face. "The suspect told police that he came to Akihabara to kill people," said Jiro Akaogi, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. "He said he was tired of life. He said he was sick of everything," Akaogi said. The violence began when a man crashed a rented two-ton truck into pedestrians. He then jumped out and began stabbing the people he had knocked down with the truck before turning on horrified onlookers, police said. Police confirmed the deaths of six men and one woman, but could not say whether they died of injuries from the truck or stabbing. Reports said the attacker grunted and roared as he slashed and stabbed at shoppers crowding a street lined with huge stores packed with the latest in computers, electronics, videos and games. "He was screaming as he was stabbing people at random," a male witness told national broadcaster NHK. Amateur video showed police overpowering the bloodied suspect. The attack paralyzed the district known as Electric Town. Amateur video taken five minutes after the rampage showed shoppers helping victims and a man screaming, "Ambulance, Ambulance!" At least 17 ambulances rushed to the scene, and rescue workers feverishly tended to victims in the blood-pooled street. As night fell, a bouquet of flowers, bottles of green tea and incense sticks had been placed at the site. Japan's crime rate is low compared to other industrialized nations and Tokyo, with 12.7 million people, is considered relatively safe. But stabbings, once rare in the country, have become more frequent in recent years. In March, one person was stabbed to death and at least seven others were hurt by a man with two knives outside a shopping mall in eastern Japan. In January a 16-year-old boy attacked five people in a shopping area, injuring two. Missing work clothes at factory may have sparked Akihabara stabbing rampage Mainichi Japan June 9, 2008 SUSONO, Shizuoka -- The man who killed seven people and injured 10 others in a stabbing rampage in Tokyo's Akihabara district on Sunday became furious after his work clothes were missing at the factory he worked at earlier this month, colleagues say. "My work clothes are missing!" the suspect, 25-year-old Tomohiro Kato, shouted at the Higashi-Fuji factory of Kanto Auto Works, Ltd. at around 6 a.m. on Thursday, shortly before his shift began, prompting a colleague to alert their boss. He had disappeared by the time the boss arrived at the scene. Later in the day, he put up several messages on a mobile phone site complaining about what happened at the factory. "When I went to my workplace, I found my work clothes were missing. Does it mean I should quit my job?" one of the entries read. "I guess the company is happy about expelling me," another messages said. Investigators suspect that Kato thought that he had been dismissed from the factory. Kato, registered with a temporary employment agency, was dispatched to the factory on Nov. 14, according to the agency and Naoyuki Hashimoto, 54, the general affairs and public relations manager at Kanto Auto Works. During a job interview, Kato said he had previously been engaged in assembling automobiles while working at another automobile company as a temporary employee. He worked hard at Kanto Auto and never took time off except his regular days off, according to colleagues. He earned about 200,000 yen a month. His contract with the automobile firm was to expire on March 31 but it was extended by one year. Kanto Auto Works planned to reduce the number of its temporary workers from 200 to 50 by the end of this month. However, the employment agency had told him that he could continue to work at the factory. Kato lived in a one-room apartment that the employment agency rents. He was spotted several times by neighbors coming home at around 11 p.m. Neighbors say he had almost no contact with them and had no trouble with other residents. Kato graduated from prestigious Aomori Prefectural High School. An Aomori Municipal Assembly member said Kato had a great education. "He graduated from prestigious Tsukuda Junior High School, then joined Aomori High School. He was real elite," he said. The daughter of an acquaintance of the assembly member was a classmate of Kato at the junior high and high schools. However, he failed in the entrance examination of a science and engineering university. After he unsuccessfully sat again for the same university's entrance examination a year later, he entered an automobile vocational school in Shizuoka Prefecture. In an elementary school yearbook, Kato described himself as "hot-tempered and stubborn." Tokyo knifeman Tomohiro Kato recorded murder blog before rampage Timesonline.co.uk June 10, 2008 Sunday’s five-minute eruption of violence by a lone knifeman, in which seven people were stabbed to death beneath the neon lights of Tokyo’s Electric Town, may have been planned for months. The selection of Akihabara — a district famed as the cradle of modern Japanese youth culture — appears to have been a central part of the killer’s scheme. And in plotting his spree, Tomohiro Kato appears to have chosen people he considered most like him: the obsessive geeks of a subculture known as otaku. Friends of Mr Kato described him yesterday as a typical Akihabara type — a cartoonist of reasonable talent who would “lose himself for hours in cyberspace”. When he went to karaoke, he would select the theme tunes of TV animations; when it came to women he would declare that he was “only interested in two-dimensional girlfriends”. Police investigating Japan’s worst killing rampage believe that the attacks were planned. In the days before the spree, Mr Kato made several visits to Akihabara to establish its suitability for his ambitions. “I knew there would be lots of people and I decided this some days ago,” he told police. Even as the minutes ticked down to the start of his rampage, he is believed to have recorded his thoughts on a blog through his mobile phone. The first comment, which appeared on the internet at 5.21am on the day of the violence, read: “I will kill people in Akihabara, have a vehicle crash and, if the vehicle becomes useless, I will use a knife.” After a running commentary that tracks his 100km (60-mile) drive from Susono, in the foothills of Mount Fuji, the messages end just minutes before the attacks. “It’s time; I’m going,” read the final comment. Until this weekend, he appeared to have led the average life of a young Japanese man from a small, provincial town: a serious boy who graduated from a good local high school in the northern prefecture of Aomori, and headed south to work in a car-parts factory in Shizuoka. According to work colleagues, he would become deeply immersed in online forums. He appears to have shared with tens of thousands of young Japanese men a passion for Akihabara and its maze of shops that helped to create Japan’s otaku stereotype. Originally, otaku referred to a sub-class of youth culture that encompassed manga comics, video games and animated pornography. More recently it has gone mainstream and financial analysts track the spending habits of its participants. But on Sunday, the façade of normality around Mr Kato slipped. At about 8.45am he arrived at a colleague’s house to give him a bag of DVDs and video games, leaving with the message: “I’m going to deliver this truck to Akihabara. I’m going to stop there briefly and then I’m flying east.” Three and a half hours later, Akihabara became a bloodbath. The victims included Katsuhiko Nakamura, a dentist who was having lunch with his wife and son, and Mai Muto, a student at Tokyo University of the Arts whose part-time job was to sell mobile phones from a booth on the crossroads where the killing took place. The mainstream media have spent the past five years demonising the otaku phenomenon, and the horrors of the weekend will only heighten the suspicion and dislike of the geeks of Akihabara. Sunday June 8: texts for a killing 05.21 Sleepy. Will drive into [the crowd] and, if the car becomes useless, I will use a knife. Goodbye everyone 05.34 I can’t get over this headache 05.35 Rain is forecast. Bad 06.02 I’m used to playing the role of good man. Everybody is so easily deceived 06.03 Am I incapable of having friends? 06.10 It seems the road I planned to take is blocked. After all, everything is against me 06.31 The time has come. Let’s go 06.39 It seems I’ll be battling against my headache 06.49 . . . against rain 06.50 . . . against time 07.30 What a dreadful rain . . . even though I prepared everything perfectly 07.47 Even though the scale is small, I’ll do what I decided to in the rain 09.48 Into Kanagawa and having a rest. Things are going well at the moment 10.53 Awful jam. Will I be in time? 11.07 Shibuya. It’s awful 11.45 Reached Akihabara. It’s the day of “pedestrians’ paradise”, isn’t it? Just minutes left now Japan massacre suspect said he was ugly, lonely June 10, 2008 - AFP TOKYO (AFP) — A suspect behind a stabbing spree in Tokyo which left seven dead was handed to prosecutors on Tuesday as a picture emerged of an angry young man engulfed by feelings he was ugly and lonely. As dozens of camera crews swarmed around, 25-year-old suspect Tomohiro Kato stared glumly at the floor inside a police van as he was taken to prosecutors, who will interrogate him and could press charges that carry the death penalty. In Japan's deadliest crime in seven years, Kato drove a rented two-tonne truck Sunday into Akihabara, a crowded Tokyo district which is the hub of Japan's comic-book and video-game subculture. He swerved the vehicle into pedestrians, jumped out and ran into the crowds raising a survival knife in one hand and a smaller knife in the other, wounding 17 people before he was overpowered. Four died from stab wounds and three others were killed by the truck. Police issued a pubilc health alert on Tuesday, saying one of the wounded had hepatitis B. It urged anyone who had contact with the pools of blood on the street to come in for a health check for the potentially deadly disease. Kato told police that he was mentally ill and prosecutors planned mental examinations to decide if he can be held accountable for the crime, the Yomiuri Shimbun evening paper said. A police spokesman declined comment on the report but said Kato was "responding calmly" to questioning. "Occasionally, he's in tears," he said. Kato documented his anger in hundreds of online postings, some made by mobile telephone as he drove to Tokyo. "I don't have a single friend and I won't in the future. I'll be ignored because I'm ugly," he wrote in one message in May. "If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn't have just left my job or be addicted to my cell phone. A man with hope could never understand this," he wrote. "I'm lower than trash because at least the trash gets recycled," he also wrote. The Japanese cabinet discussed whether authorities could have done more considering the warning signs on the Internet, chief government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said. "There were various opinions but we haven't found a good answer yet," Machimura said. "It's not such a simple case." In the course of a few years, Kato went from studying at a top high school to struggling to hold on to his job at a small-town auto parts factory. "He was an excellent student who was making efforts in studying and sports," a woman whose daughter was his classmate in elementary and middle schools told the Tokyo Shimbun. "His mother was eager about education and he seemed to be trying to live up to her expectations," she said. He was a leader in the classroom and of a tennis club in middle school, reports said. But he also started to act violently at home as he entered Aomori prefecture's top high school. Entering the prestigious school as an elite, his class rank slipped to around 300 among the 360 students as he rubbed shoulders with the region's brightest children, a classmate told the Asahi television network. "He wasn't outstanding at all in his studies or extracurricular activities. He was really a mediocre student," a high school teacher told the Fuji network. A neighbour said she heard that Kato and his younger brother would beat up their own mother. "It's so painful having dinner with him," another acquaintance quoted the mother as saying, according to the Sports Hochi tabloid. "I'm scared." He failed university entrance examinations and eventually trained to become an auto mechanic, newspapers said. A temping agency dispatched him in November to the auto parts factory in central Shizuoka prefecture, but he was reportedly on the verge of losing his job. "He was the only contract worker along with me. The factory chief summoned the two of us and said that our contracts were going to be terminated at the end of June. I think he was troubled by the job cut," a colleague told television networks. Education Minister Kisaburo Tokai said Tuesday that he planned to consult with experts about the state of children in Japan, which has long enjoyed a reputation for its low crime. "It made me think about whether the background of this incident may have been linked to education," Tokai told reporters. Japan stabbing suspect cries during interrogation By Eric Talmadge - Associated Press June 10, 2008 TOKYO (AP) — The suspect in a knifing rampage that left seven dead in Tokyo was handed over to prosecutors Tuesday, as Internet postings he is accused of writing painted a picture of an angry, lonely young man and a meticulously planned attack. Tomohiro Kato, a 25-year-old factory worker, was transferred from police custody to a holding cell at the Tokyo prosecutors office, where he was expected to undergo further questioning into Sunday's attack. Police say he slammed a rented truck into a crowd of pedestrians before jumping out and stabbing several people with a five-inch knife. A police spokesman said Kato has generally been cooperative, though unapologetic, during questioning and has at times broken down in tears. The spokesman requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing and refused to give further details. Police conducting a search of Kato's apartment Tuesday confiscated empty packages that had contained knives, receipts for the knives and at least one club, a separate police spokesman said, under the same condition of anonymity. Three people were killed by the impact of the truck and four others died of stab wounds, police said. Another 10 were injured. Kato, his face and clothes spattered with blood, was arrested on the spot. It was the worst killing spree in Tokyo in recent memory. The Asahi and the Yomiuri, two of Japan's biggest newspapers, reported that Kato told police he went to Akihabara the day before the rampage to plan his assault. National broadcaster NHK reported Kato also told police he visited the popular shopping district to sell his home computer to raise money to rent the truck. Akihabara is a hangout for young people and the center of Japan's comic book and computer game culture. Police refused to confirm those reports. More details emerged in the media Tuesday about Kato's background and his metamorphosis from an award-winning tennis player in high school to a secluded and virtually friendless temporary worker in a factory outside Tokyo. Three days before the attack, Kato lost his temper at the auto parts factory where he worked in Shizuoka, about 100 miles southwest of Tokyo, company executive Osamu Namai said. "He was screaming that his uniform was missing. When his colleague got a new uniform for him, he had already left and never returned," Namai told reporters. Namai also said, however, that Kato was a "very serious" worker and not known as a troublemaker. NHK reported that Kato bought a knife at a camping and outdoor supply shop two days before the rampage. Surveillance video showed him laughing with the shopkeeper and making stabbing motions with his hands. In the days leading up to the attack, Kato also sent a slew of postings from his cell phone to an Internet bulletin board, police said. Though officials refused to comment further, Japanese media said the postings depicted a disturbed man raging against society and vowing to get revenge by unleashing his fury on the streets of Akihabara. The main street in Akihabara is closed to traffic on Sundays, allowing large crowds of pedestrians to flow into the area. A chronicle of the messages, carried by The Asahi, portrayed a man at his breaking point: "Oh, I am hopeless," the paper said he wrote two days before the attack. "What I want to do: commit murder. My dream: to monopolize the tabloid TV shows. ... I saw a loving couple at a river bank. I wish they were killed by (being) swept away by the river." "Since I was young, I was forced to play a 'good boy,'" he reportedly wrote the next day. "I'm used to deceiving people." Just 20 minutes before the attack, he reportedly posted his last message: "It's time." No charges have been filed against Kato. Under Japanese law, a suspect can be held by police for two days and then must be transferred to the custody of prosecutors, who have 20 days to either file charges or release the suspect.