Behind the scenes of the tense hostage rescue operation at a holed-up yakiniku restaurant

I wanted to get caught by the police and end my life. “I wanted to end my life by getting caught by the police. I wanted to eat grilled meat one last time before I got caught. “I wanted to make it like the train incident on Halloween.”

The man who took the manager of a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant in Yoyogi, Shibuya Ward, hostage on the night of January 8 and holed up for three hours stated his overly selfish motives.

The suspect, 28-year-old Araki Akinori, was arrested on suspicion of confinement. The suspect, Araki, 28, held a male manager hostage at a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant in Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, from 9 p.m. on August 8, but was taken into custody by Metropolitan Police investigators who raided the restaurant around midnight.

The suspect, who was excited about our persuasion, said, ‘I want the death penalty, and I’m not going to negotiate,’ and the situation was out of control. We were prepared for a stalemate until the morning, but when the date changed, we succeeded in rescuing the manager who had been taken hostage, so we decided to go in.

There are two entrances to the store, one at the front and one at the back, and the MPD was negotiating at the front to get Araki’s attention, while the rescue operation was carried out at the back. When the manager noticed the investigators coming around from the back, he took advantage of the moment and escaped through the back entrance. The manager was not injured.

The moment of the raid was like watching a drama. The moment of the raid was like watching a drama. I’ve seen many other prefectural police departments respond to such incidents, but the speed with which the Metropolitan Police Department responded to the incident, from the time it occurred to the time of the arrests, was indeed impressive.

Speaking of hide-and-seek incidents, last June’s incident in which a woman was held hostage in a manga cafe in Omiya, Saitama Prefecture, is still fresh in our minds. The Saitama Prefectural Police had to negotiate for more than 30 hours from the time of the incident until they raided and arrested the woman. Although the situation at the scene was different, the fact that the police were able to control the situation in just three hours shows the high level of investigative ability of the Metropolitan Police Department.

According to the investigators, the suspect Araki said, “I wanted to end my life by being arrested by the police. I wanted to eat yakiniku before I was arrested, so I ate yakiniku and then holed up.

The president, who runs a yakiniku restaurant near the crime scene, said in disgust.

If he just wanted to eat yakiniku, he could have come to my house and I would have let him eat as much as he wanted. I can’t believe they would involve an unrelated yakiniku restaurant to cause such an incident. Especially with the Covid-19 disaster, I can’t forgive him for taking away my precious time to eat out with my family and friends.

What was the background that drove Araki to commit the murder at the yakiniku restaurant? The suspect’s home is believed to be in the Kyushu area, and the Metropolitan Police Department is considering sending in investigators.