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| The banality of evil: Japanese mass murderer Satoshi Uematsu |
Recently, much more information about Satoshi Uematsu, the Japanese mass casualty stabber, has emerged.
"He went in the dark of the night, opened one door at a time, and stabbed sleeping people one by one."
That explains why he was able to murder so many people. It wasn't that they were disabled. It was that they were asleep.
He turned himself in, leaving a bag of bloody knives in his car.
Apparently, Uematsu had earlier sent a letter to the Speaker of the Japanese Parliament, outlining an original plan for him to personally euthanize 470 disabled individuals.
He was hospitalized for two weeks and then released.
I"m not here going to make any moral condemnations of Japanese culture. If anything, Japan seem to be less enthusiastic about euthanasia than many "post-Christian" countries.
Obviously, Satoshi Uematsu was an exception.
From The Guardian:
To his neighbours, he was a polite young man with a ready smile and a desire to help. But, on Tuesday, Satoshi Uematsu was in police custody after allegedly carrying out the worst mass killing in Japan since the second world war.
As residents in the Tsukui district of Sagamihara city struggled to comprehend the brutal slaying of 19 residents at a care home where Uematsu once worked, it was becoming apparent that his actions were driven by a deep-seated hatred of people with disabilities.
As reporters descended on this quiet neighbourhood of grand wooden homes, persimmon orchards and allotments, Uematsu’s neighbours could barely believe reports that he had returned to the facility where he was employed until February this year and begun stabbing residents as they slept, in many cases slitting their throats.
At about 2am, the 26-year-old is thought to have got into his car and driven the short distance from his home to the Tsukui Yamayuri En (Tsukui Lily Garden) facility, where he smashed a window with a hammer to gain entry.
By the end of his rampage, nine men and 10 women aged 19-70 were dead and 25 others were injured, most of them seriously. Then, according to reports, he got back into his car and drove to the nearest police station to hand himself in.
“I did it,” he was quoted as telling police officers at around 3am. “It is better that disabled people disappear,” he was said to have added.
Inside his car, police found a bag containing knives and other sharp-edged tools. Witnesses who glimpsed inside the vehicle before it was impounded said the seats were covered in blood.
As reports emerged of Uematsu’s desire to exterminate disabled people through euthanasia, his neighbour, Akihiro Hasegawa, said there was nothing in the suspect’s behaviour to foretell his capacity for unspeakable violence against some of the community’s most vulnerable people.
“You’d probably expect me to say that he looked weird, or had done something bad, but he was just a friendly, polite guy who said hello whenever we saw each other in the street,” Hasegawa, 73, told the Guardian. “I am sure that everyone else in this neighbourhood would say the same.”
Uematsu, he said, was immediately recognisable from his shock of dyed blond hair, and added that he had spotted his neighbour’s yakuza-style tattoo on his chest and upper arms. Despite the marking, Uematsu is not thought to belong to a crime syndicate.
Authorities said he had been “involuntarily committed” to hospital on 19 February, after police in Tsukui, located 50km south-west of Tokyo, contacted him in response to a letter he had attempted to pass to the speaker of the lower house of Japan’s parliament.
In the letter, Uematsu argued that the government should permit euthanasia for disabled people, said he would be willing to carry out such killings himself, and detailed how he would do it.
“I envision a world where a person with multiple disabilities can be euthanised, with an agreement from the guardians, when it is difficult for the person to carry out household and social activities,” the letter said.
Uematsu’s letter said he could “wipe out a total of 470 disabled individuals” by targeting two facilities for disabled people during the night shift, “when staffing is low”.
“The act will be carried out speedily, and definitely without harming the staff. After wiping out the 260 people in two facilities, I will turn myself in.”
He was released from hospital on 2 March after a doctor deemed his condition had improved, a Sagamihara town official said. While in hospital, Uematsu was diagnosed as suffering from paranoia as well as being dependent on cannabis, the official added.
“I feel pain, as it’s said there was no problem, but that was the decision at that time,” said Eiji Yagi, a Sagamihara official in charge of the city’s mental health welfare section.
The suspect apparently began changing about five months ago, said Yuji Kuroiwa, the governor of the prefecture in which Sagamihara is located. “You could say there were warning signs, but it’s difficult to say if this could have been prevented,” he told reporters.
“This was not an impulsive crime ... He went in the dark of the night, opened one door at a time, and stabbed sleeping people one by one. I just can’t believe the cruelty of this crime. We need to prevent this from ever happening again.”
A Twitter account that Japanese media said belonged to Uematsu included a tweet posted at 2.50am, moments after the attack ended. It said: “Wishing for a peaceful world. Beautiful Japan!” . . .
According to local media reports, Uematsu tied up at least one member of staff with plastic handcuffs before attacking the residents, who live with a wide range of disabilities.
The Tsukui Yamayuri En facility is situated in three hectares (7.6 acres) of grounds. Established by the local government and located on the banks of the Sagami river, it has a swimming pool, gym and medical clinic. The facility is home to 150 residents aged between 19 and 75; about 40 are over 60.
In the afternoon, hearses arrived at the care home to remove some of the bodies, but most were still inside the building as darkness fell and police re-directed residents driving home from work.
