Author: Yamaguchi Banri
Associated Press
TOKYO (AP) — The chief of Japan’s national police said he would resign to take responsibility for the lack of security, after an investigation by his own agency showed that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not adequately address his campaign in July. Protect it from deadly shootings.
The statement by National Police Chief Itaru Nakamura came as his agency released a report blaming deficiencies in police protection — from planning to field guards — that led to Abe’s July 8 arrest in western Japan. Nara was assassinated.
Nakamura said he took the former prime minister’s death seriously and submitted his resignation to the National Public Safety Committee on August 25.
“In order to fundamentally revisit the defense and never let that happen, we need to have a new system,” Nakamura said at a news conference announcing his intention to step down.
Nakamura did not say when he would officially resign. Japanese media reported that his resignation was expected to be approved.
The alleged gunman, Yamashin Tetsu, was also arrested at the scene and is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation until late November. Sanshin told police he targeted Abe because of the former leader’s ties to the Unification Church, which he hated.
Abe last year sent a video message to a church-affiliated group that experts say may have angered the suspect in the shooting.
The National Police Agency concluded in a 54-page investigative report that the protection plan for Abe ignored potential dangers from behind him and focused only on the risks in his movement from the location of his speech to the vehicle.
Inadequate chain of command, communication between several key police officers, and their focus on the area behind Abe at the campaign site led to a lack of attention to the suspect’s movements until it was too late.
None of the officers assigned to protect Abe immediately caught the suspect until he was already 7 meters (yards) behind him, he took out his homemade double-barreled gun, which was like a camera with a long lens, and the first shot fired I almost missed Abe. As of that moment, none of the officers knew of the suspect’s existence or recognized that the explosion was a shooting, the report said.
In just over two seconds, the suspect fatally fired a second shot just 5.3 meters (yards) behind Abe.
The report calls for a significant increase in the training and staffing of protection for senior Japanese officials, as well as revisions to police protection guidelines for the first time in about 30 years. It said the prefectural police’s Abe protection plan lacked a thorough safety assessment and largely replicated an earlier visit by another senior party lawmaker.
The national police has called for a doubling of the protection of senior officials in Tokyo, a greater oversight role for prefectural staff, and increased ground surveillance using digital technology and drones. The police agency has also come up with bulletproof shields not yet used in Japan, which is known for its strict gun control.
Abe’s family paid tribute to him in a private Buddhist ceremony on August 25, 49 days after his assassination. His younger brother and former defense minister Nobuo Kishi, as well as other senior party officials and ministers, were reported to have attended the meeting.
A few days after his death, about 1,000 people, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, attended an earlier private funeral at a Tokyo temple.
Kishida’s government plans to hold a state funeral on Sept. 27, a plan that has divided opinion amid mounting criticism of members of the ruling party’s close ties to the controversial South Korean church. Kishida’s cabinet reportedly announced a 250 million yen ($1.8 million) budget to invite 6,400 guests from inside and outside Japan to the upcoming funeral.
Founded in South Korea in 1954, the Unification Church came to Japan a decade later, forging close ties with many conservative lawmakers, many of whom are members of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party because of their shared anti-communist interests.
The church has faced accusations of recruitment and religious sales in Japan since the 1980s, and even after the recent reshuffle, the ruling party’s church ties have seen support for Kishida’s cabinet plummet.
In Nara, the prefectural police chief Tomoaki Onizuka also expressed his intention to step down because of Abe’s assassination.
In the former leader’s death, “I was almost overwhelmed by the gravity of my responsibility,” said a tearful Onizuka. “We will grit our teeth and work hard to restore the public’s trust and help people in the prefecture and across Japan.”
