Top Security Professionals ‘Doubts’ about Nara Prefectural Police Negligence on Abe’s Shooting Incident

Why couldn’t the murderous act have been prevented?

At around 11:30 a.m. on August 8, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot in front of the north exit of Kintetsu “Yamato Saidaiji” station in Nara City. He was shot from behind during a speech in support of an LDP candidate for the Upper House election. It was then reported that former Prime Minister Abe died at around 6:00 p.m.

“The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, who was seized on the spot, is believed to have shot former Prime Minister Abe with a homemade gun consisting of two steel pipe-like objects wrapped in black tape. The suspect, Yamagami, slipped through the gap between the SPs surrounding him and fired the gun at former Prime Minister Abe at a close range of about 5 meters,” said a reporter from the social affairs department of a national newspaper.

One SP from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Security Division was on guard around Prime Minister Abe. In addition to this, a security officer from the Nara Prefectural Police Department was also at the scene. However, the public could easily approach within a few meters of the camp, and Prime Minister Abe’s back was left open and indeed, the murderous act did take place.

A source in the National Police Agency told us, “Normally, a big politician would be a speechwriter.”

Normally, when a major politician comes to give a speech, the prefectural police are contacted by the party and other parties to provide security. This time, former Prime Minister Abe’s speech was suddenly scheduled the day before, but even so, it is their responsibility to respond to the situation properly.

It is a first time in Japan for a person to attack a politician with a homemade gun, but the fact that a person carrying a suspicious object was allowed to approach a dignitary in the first place indicates that there was a problem with the security system. Furthermore, if the public is given the impression that attacks can occur even in the presence of security guards, even the very existence of the security system will be in jeopardy.

The head of the Nara Prefectural Police Department, Mr. Tomoaki Onizuka, is an elite in the field of security, having served as a director of the Public Safety Division of the Security Bureau of the National Police Agency in 2011 and as the head of the Security Section of the Security Bureau of the Metropolitan Police Department in 2008. The Metropolitan Police Department and the Nara Prefectural Police Department are largely to blame for dispatching the SPs.

There is no doubt that this was an unprecedented crime, however, it is also true that can never be an excuse for the irresponsibility and lacks of the security