A Japanese Man Dressed Up As The Joker Stabbed Passengers On A Train And Started A Fire, Injuring 17
as the Joker started a fire on a train in Tokyo and attacked passengers with a knife on Sunday Oct. 31, injuring at least 17 people, one critically.
A man dressed up as the Joker started a fire on a train in Tokyo and attacked passengers with a knife on Sunday Oct. 31, injuring at least 17 people, one critically.
A 24-year-old man, who witnesses said was dressed like the Joker from the Batman comics, has been arrested for the attack on the Keio express line bound for Shinjuku, the world’s busiest rail station, at around 8pm local time.
Videos on social media showed people running through the train cars to flee from the attacker before a fire erupts and fills the carriage with smoke.
Passengers are seen trying to squeeze out of the train’s windows and climbing over the platform gates after the train made an emergency stop.
Police said a man in his 70s is in critical condition after being stabbed in the chest, the BBC reported.
A witness told the Yomiuri newspaper that he had initially thought it was a “Halloween stunt” when he saw the panicked passengers running towards his train car before he later saw a man “slowing waving a a long knife” with blood on it.
“Train doors were closed and we had no idea what was happening, and we jumped from the windows, another witness who filmed one of the video told NHK, adding that it was “horrifying.”
Local media reported that the suspect told police that he dressed up like the Joker because he looked up to him and “wanted to kill people so he could be sentenced to death,” according to Reuters.
Violent crime is rare in Japan, which is one of the safest countries in the world, but there have been a number of high profile knife attacks in recent years.
Another man injured ten people in a knife attack on a Tokyo commuter train in August, and in 2019, a 51-year-old man in Kawasaki stabbed 17 schoolgirls and two adults waiting at a bus stop, killing an 11-year-old girl and a 39-year-old man before fatally stabbing himself.
