FUKUSHIMA (TR) – A woman was freed unharmed in Fukushima City after a knife-wielding man held her captive in her apartment for seven hours, police said on Saturday.
Fukushima Prefectural Police arrested Masayoshi Sekine, 23, for allegedly intruding into the apartment of the woman, who is his acquaintance, and holding her captive for 7.5 hours, the Sankei Shimbun reports (September 3).
Police received an emergency call from a mover at around 11:30 a.m. saying that there was a “man with a knife holed up inside.” The mover was hired by the woman to help move her belongings.
Police moved into the apartment after negotiators tried to reason with Sekine for 7.5 hours.
An investigation is under way to determine the relationship between Sekine and the woman.
Nao Watanabe, 36, a housewife in the neighborhood, said one of the nearby roads is “what my son takes to go to school, so it’s scary something like this is happening. It used to be a place where incidents didn’t occur.”
Another nearby neighbor said he was “surprised because it was so close. I hope the incident ends safely.”
A 69-year-old who works nearby said the incident was “the first time anything like this has happened, and I’ve been living here a long time. I was worried because I didn’t know what was going on.”
The incident took place in a residential area about 1.2 kilometers east from JR Higashi-Fukushima Station.
