NAKANO, Nagano Prefecture: Police arrested a 31-year-old man Friday over a knife and gun attack in the city of Nakano, Nagano Prefecture, central Japan, that left four people dead including two policemen.
Masanori Aoki, the first son of Masamichi Aoki, 57, speaker of the Nakano city assembly, was captured around 4:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. Thursday GMT), some 12 hours after the incident began.
In the incident, Masanori Aoki mounted a knife attack from around 4:25 p.m. Thursday, fired a hunting rifle and holed up in his father’s house in the city.
According to the Nagano prefectural police, he stabbed to death Yukie Murakami, 66, who lived near the house. He also shot dead police officers Yoshiki Tamai, 46, and Takuo Ikeuchi, 61, who arrived at the scene following an emergency call. The three were confirmed dead after being sent to hospital.
Besides the three, an elderly woman found lying on the ground near the house was later confirmed dead, bringing the total deaths in the incident to four. The woman was initially thought to be a man.
Aoki, wearing camouflage and sunglasses, holed up in the house some 600 meters away from the stabbing site. The sound of gunfire was heard intermittently in the area.
He was seen outside the house from around 2 a.m. Friday. He entered the house again and apparently surrendered to the police later.
In the house, there were two women including Aoki’s mother when Aoki began holing up. The mother escaped from the house around 8:35 p.m. Thursday, and the other woman, a relative of the suspect, fled around 12:10 a.m. Friday.
The two women and the suspect’s father have been confirmed safe.
The scene is 1.5 kilometers west of Nagano Electric Railway’s Shinshunakano Station.
According to investigative sources, the special investigation team of the first investigation division of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department joined prefectural police officers deployed on the scene.
Entry to a 300-meter radius from the site was restricted during the incident, with locals living within the area evacuated to a nearby school.
