FUKUOKA (TR) – A male guest at a business hotel in Hakata Ward leaped from a room window after taking a female employee hostage on Wednesday morning, police said. The man is currently in critical condition, reports Nippon News Network (Jan. 18).
At around 6:20 a.m., a colleague of the employee alerted the Hakata Police Station after she did not return from a visit to assist the man, believed to be aged in his 30s, at his room on the seventh floor of the R&B Hotel Hakata Ekimae.
“He swung open a window [on the seventh floor],” a witness told the network. “While nude he hung outside and screamed.”
Officers arriving at the scene determined that the man had taken the employee hostage and commenced negotiations for her release. At 7:40 a.m., police rushed into the room after discussions stalled and the man jumped from the window, falling to the street below, according to the Sankei Shimbun (Jan. 18).
The man was subsequently transported to a nearby hospital in a state of cardiac arrest.