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Web Nuggets: Akihabara killer blogged his crime

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      CommentAuthororwellseyes
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2008 edited
     (2534.1)
    Utterly creepy and something I fear will become more common among wackjobs.



    Police are questioning Tomohiro Kato, 25, a part-time worker in a car parts factory in the central Japan prefecture of Shizuoka. Officials quoted Kato as telling them that he had warned them of what he planned to do.

    The first post that Kato pointed them to was logged at 5:21 a.m. Sunday on a mobile phone website and was titled, "I will kill people in Akihabara."

    "I want to crash the vehicle and, if it is rendered useless, then I will use a knife. Goodbye everyone."

    Around 8 a.m., Kato collected a two-ton truck from a rental agency near his home and began the 60-mile journey to Tokyo. He detailed his progress into the city over the next four hours, ruling out a delay in his plan as the weather was fine and taking a rest in a motorway service station.

    Subsequent messages stated, "Just arrived in Akihabara" and, at 11.45 a.m., he keyed, "Today is 'pedestrian paradise,' isn't it?"

    Akihabara is one of Tokyo's busiest shopping districts and attracts thousands of fans of anime, "manga" comics, electronics and gadgets every weekend. On Sundays, many streets are closed to vehicles and turned into pedestrian areas.

    In his final chilling message, posted at 12:10, Kato simply stated, "It is time."

    ...

  2.  (2534.2)
    time for the internet to be heavily policed and every thought and action closely monitored by the higher beings?

    hmm.
  3.  (2534.3)
    Time for the media to stop reporting shit like this. Every time they go public with some crazy killer’s manifesto they’re sending violent suicidal guys the message that they can have oblivion and fame. These killers should be subject of media blackouts, not scrutiny.
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      CommentAuthorCCosker
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2008
     (2534.4)
    Welcome to the murders of the 21st century. This doesn't surprise me in the slightest. It's the next logical step after MySpace suicides.

    I'm still waiting on a serial killer blog, or a Columbine-esque blog post. These things are coming. And the videos will end up on YouTube. Until the next big thing comes along.
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      CommentAuthorJon Wake
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2008
     (2534.5)
    Time for the media to stop reporting shit like this. Every time they go public with some crazy killer’s manifesto they’re sending violent suicidal guys the message that they can have oblivion and fame. These killers should be subject of media blackouts, not scrutiny.

    "Sad Fuckwit Loser offs self, others. And now for Sports."
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      CommentAuthorDigitalyn
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2008
     (2534.6)
    Interesting thing is how and what the news here decided to emphasize. I read the french news about it, capital letters on manga and internet. You read manga or comics ? Congratulations, you're a psycho killer. Internet ? T3h demon !
    This is sad.
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      CommentAuthorElana
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2008
     (2534.7)
    His targets were fans of manga and comics. I'm not sure if it says anywhere that he was.
  8.  (2534.8)
    Figuring out the "motive" in a case like this is nailing jello to a wall. The man was insane, Mentally ill people who aren't in treatment of some kind can do awful things. Usually to themselves or those close to them, in rare cases strangers. It's the rare part that isn't emphasized.
    • CommentAuthorrough night
    • CommentTimeJun 9th 2008 edited
     (2534.9)
    It's unfortunate that the rare part isn't mentioned, too, because this kind of story is exactly what's building the culture of fear in America right now. (even when the shit happens in other countries)
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      CommentAuthorJon Wake
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2008 edited
     (2534.10)
    Actually, orwellseyes, spree killers like this guy are rarely mentally ill. The mentally ill are actually more dangerous to themselves than anyone else. It's usually a response to a lifetime of perceiving themselves to be completely powerless people with no control over their lives seeking for one great deed to show the universe that they are not Fate's Bitch. Ironically, they prove just that.

    There is an explanation for these people, it's just not a satisfying one or one that gives a solution. We live in an intensely competitive society, where the measure of fitness is not how far you can throw a spear, but how well you can network with others. Some people, who view the world through a controller-controllee lens, have a long history of emotional abuse, and a see that attention if given to people whose only talent is violence (and they're not even good at that, because if they were they'd be in Special Forces) see their lives as basically failed experiments and hate anyone who isn't a failure.

    Of the world's Sad Fuckwit Loser population there's gonna be some that see mass murder as a reclamation of their power.

    Very, very little you can do about it.
  11.  (2534.11)
    @Jon Wake

    Well agreed... yet the media at large seems to delight in reporting and emphasising attacks and murders by sufferers of schizophrenia, as if that's all that anyone with the diagnosis does. It's no wonder that common knowledge would link mental illness to violence towards others.
    •  
      CommentAuthorobliterati
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2008
     (2534.12)
    I'm having a time out until I can learn some manners.
    My first thought was that he was simulating Grand Theft Auto.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDigitalyn
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2008 edited
     (2534.13)
    @Elana exactly but that's how some news turned it here.
    •  
      CommentAuthorroque
    • CommentTimeJun 10th 2008
     (2534.14)
    not exactly a new kind of murder, especially here in Japan. the difference is in the media that report it after the fact (or, in this case, before and after).
  15.  (2534.15)
    Some people, who view the world through a controller-controllee lens, have a long history of emotional abuse, and a see that attention if given to people whose only talent is violence (and they're not even good at that, because if they were they'd be in Special Forces) see their lives as basically failed experiments and hate anyone who isn't a failure.

    Which sounds like mental illness in a nutshell. Mind you, perhaps without an over biological cause.

    Sorry, you drive a van into people and start stabbing them, you're sick in the brain. Define it and dance around it all you like, anyone having those impulses is sick, needs treatment and confinement. And a shitload of drugs.

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