TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have launched an investigation after a 13-year-old boy plunged to his death from an apartment building in Shinagawa Ward on Monday in an apparent suicide, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun (May 7).
At around 11:50 p.m., a woman alerted emergency services after finding the boy “collapsed and bleeding” on the grounds of the 24-floor building, located in the Hiratsuka area.
Emergency personnel arriving at the scene found the boy, a second-year middle school student, to have suffered severe trauma over the length of his body. He was later confirmed dead at a hospital.
According to the Ebara Police Station, the boy, who was clothed in pajamas, lives in a unit of the building with his parents, both of whom were asleep at the time.
Though police are maintaining that the boy’s death could have been the result of an accident, evidence found at the scene suggests that he leaped from the family’s residence in intentionally taking his life.
The incident took place during an extended Golden Week holiday. According to police, suicides among children increase following such holiday periods, reports Fuji News Network (May 7).
