Man dressed as Batman’s Joker commits stabbing/arson attack on Tokyo train on Halloween night

Tells police his goal was to “kill a lot of people.”

Shortly before 8 p.m. on Halloween night, a Keio Line express train in Tokyo was traveling from Hachioji to Shinjuku. One of the passengers was a 24-year-old man dressed in a purple suit, green shirt, and necktie who was seen smoking a cigarette onboard the train, in violation of the rules.

At 7:54 the train pulled out of Chofu Station, and shortly thereafter the man stabbed a 72-year-old passenger in the chest with a knife with a 30-centimeter (11.8-inch) blade. As panicked passengers fled, the attacker then spread lighter fluid around the train and lit a fire, with flames spreading to the next car over.

A passenger hit the onboard emergency notification button and told the conductor what was happening, and the train made an emergency stop at the next station, Kokuryo. However, because the platform position the train stopped at was different than what it should be under normal conditions, the train and platform doors did not align, and the train’s doors did not open, forcing passengers to climb through the windows to get to safety. The stabbing victim was rushed, unconscious, to the hospital, and 16 other passengers required treatment for smoke inhalation.

▼ Video of the attacker and incident

After the train stopped, the attacker, later identified as Kyota Hattori, remained inside the train, where he was apprehended by police officers who had been dispatched to the scene. “I came up with a plan to kill a lot of people on Halloween” said Hattori during questioning. “Since about last July I was screwing up as work,” says the currently unemployed Hattori, “and I’m not having good relationships with friends, so I wanted to die.” His intent for the attack, he said, was to kill enough people that he would receive the death penalty. “I wanted to be like the Joker, who kills people. I bought this outfit to wear when I committed the crime.”

Sources: Yahoo! Japan News/Kyodo via Otakomu, NHK News Web (1, 2), The Sankei News via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Wikipedia/MaedaAkihiko
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