In a gruesome turn of events, a certain Japanese man was arrested after injuring 17 people with a knife and trying to set the train on fire on Halloween. The police said that he targeted Tokyo while hoping to kill as many people as possible.
Joker Tokyo Train Attacker
The Joker Tokyo train attacker, Kyoto Hattori, 24-years-old, said he thought he could "kill many people in Tokyo." Videos of the incident, which happened in Keio Line train as of recent, were posted on social media. Eyewitnesses shared the videos, showing the suspect at the scene intriguingly wearing a bright green shirt, a purple suit, and a dark tie that Joker, the famous Batman villain, usually wears.
The Tokyo police then referred Hattori to the prosecutors on suspicion of the attempted murder. Out of the injured 17 individuals, one of them remains in critical condition after allegedly being stabbed in the chest by Hattori. The man was 72 years old, and this happened while the train was still in motion.
Kyoto Hattori
According to the story by South China Morning Post, the suspect was seen allegedly trying to start a fire on the train through the use of lighter fluid. A video recorded by people on the train showed passengers trying to escape a large blaze in one of the said carriages.
As for the other 16 victims, they were reportedly aged from their teens to their 60s and sustained some minor injuries, including smoke inhalation. Hattori was even quoted noting that he targeted Halloween since the trains would usually be busy with passengers.
Attacker Did Not Come from Tokyo
About two hours before the said incident, he then decided to go to Tokyo's Shibuya district. This is where throngs of different costumed partygoers usually celebrate the festival, as per the police.
Hattori just recently arrived in Tokyo sometime in late September of this year, coming from his native city of Fukuoka. A few months later, he simply quit his own job at a certain company that he decided to work at for three years.
After leaving the said southwestern Japan city, he decided to stay at hotels in Kobe as well as Nagoya while also accumulating debts, as per sources. Once Hattori was in Tokyo, he bought the Joker costume, bug spray, and lighter fluid, as per sources.
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Attacker's Belongings
Police were able to find a knife, a number of plastic bottles that could have included lighter fluid, and even an aerosol can found in a train car. He also told investigators that he had prepared the fluid in order to burn it on the train.
This indicated the attack's premeditated nature, which was also inspired by yet another knife attack in August 2021. The previous attack is where a man splashed cooking oil on a certain Odakyu Electric Railway commuter train that failed to ignite. The official video can be seen on YouTube.
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Written by Urian B.
