Barricaded Tokyo man seized
The suspected mobster is accused in a street shooting just days after another brazen attack.
TOKYO - Police stormed an apartment yesterday and seized a suspected gangster who had barricaded himself inside after a deadly shooting in the streets of a Tokyo suburb in violence that officials said may signal infighting in the Japanese underworld.
The violence came days after the mayor of Nagasaki was gunned down by a reputed mobster in an unrelated killing. Crime syndicates are overwhelmingly responsible for Japan's rare gun attacks.
The events began yesterday when the suspected gangster fatally shot another mobster from the same group on the street in a western suburb of the capital, a local police official, Yukio Tonose, said.
The shooter, identified as Yuji Takeshita, 36, then barricaded himself inside his apartment, firing a series of shots toward surrounding officers, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police spokesman said.
After police stormed the apartment, public broadcaster NHK showed paramedics carrying the suspect on a stretcher out of his apartment. Police said he was believed to have shot himself in the head and was taken to a hospital, with his condition unknown.
Shootings are relatively rare in Japan, which has strict gun-control laws, but yesterday's incident was the second this week.
"The cases must be investigated inside out, and I would like [the authorities] to step up anticrime measures," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday. "We must make utmost effort to eradicate such shootings and gangster groups."
On Tuesday a gangster who unsuccessfully sought compensation from the city for damage to his car fatally shot the mayor of Nagasaki, authorities said. Police arrested Tetsuya Shiroo, a senior member of Japan's largest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi, and said he admitted the attack.
Analysts say the recent shootings are signs that gangsters are getting desperate in keeping their turf and finding income sources since the government stepped up antigang measures in the 1990s.
"Gangsters used to keep their guns to themselves, largely to protect their turf," former National Police Agency official Yutaka Takehana told NHK. "The recent cases indicate gang groups are getting desperate for money."
Japan's organized-crime groups are typically involved in real estate and construction kickback schemes, extortion, gambling, the sex industry and drug trafficking.