Firefighters stand near the area around a post office in Warabi city, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, October 31, 2023. /CFP
Firefighters stand near the area around a post office in Warabi city, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, October 31, 2023. /CFP
Police ended an eight-hour standoff at a post office north of Tokyo by arresting the armed suspect after two hostages were freed safely in an attack authorities said could be related to an earlier shooting at a hospital.
The man had entered the post office with a gun in Warabi on Tuesday, about an hour after the hospital shooting in which two people were wounded in the nearby city of Toda.
Footage on NHK television showed an older man sitting between two police officers in the back seat of a police car that drove past reporters and headed to a local police station.
Police said they captured the suspect when they stormed into the building about an hour after the second of the two postal staff who remained in the building had escaped unhurt. The other hostage had walked out safely nearly two hours earlier, according to NHK reports.
Police said they were investigating the hospital and post office attacks together because they could be related. They are also looking into a fire in a building where the suspect reportedly lived.
Police identified the suspect as Tsuneo Suzuki, an 86-year-old resident of Toda, and arrested him on suspicion of compulsion and taking hostages, a crime that carries a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.
Suzuki allegedly entered the post office and took two female staff in their 20s and 30s at gunpoint while demanding police officials arrange a meeting with an unidentified person, police said, without giving details, including who he was demanding to meet. Police earlier refused to confirm hostage details on grounds of ensuring their safety.
Hundreds of police had surrounded the building housing the post office. Television footage showed officers wearing helmets and bulletproof vests squatting behind the doors of a patrol vehicle parked outside.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Saitama Prefectural Police said two men, a doctor in his 40s and a patient in his 60s, were wounded as apparent gunfire was heard outside a hospital in Toda.
The victims are both conscious, and their wounds are not life-threatening, according to the police.
(With input from AP)
