Eight plainclothes police officers on the lookout for a 24-year-old man were unable to stop him from going on a stabbing spree in and outside JR Arakawaoki Station in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki Prefecture, on March 23. One man was killed and seven other people were injured, two of them critically.
The suspect had already been put on the police wanted list after his bicycle was found at the scene of the March 19 stabbing death of a 72-year-old man in Tsuchiura. On March 22, he called the police from his mobile phone and taunted them by saying, "Catch me soon." Since he did not have a driver's license and the mobile phone signal was traced to near Arakawaoki station, police mobilized about 170 officers mainly along the JR Joban Line.
Despite the placement of eight plainclothesmen in and around the station, however, the suspect managed to exit the wicket. He stabbed five people in front of the wicket, two more while running through a passageway that links the station with a shopping mall, and another within the shopping mall. The last victim, who was stabbed in the neck, died in hospital.