Latest news with #Hachioji
NHK
2 days ago
- NHK
Tokyo police calling for cooperation to solve 30-year-old murder case
Wednesday marks 30 years since three part-time workers were shot to death at a supermarket in suburban Tokyo. The case remains unresolved. On July 30, 1995, two high school girls and a 47-year-old woman were shot in their head at an office of a supermarket in Hachioji City. Tokyo police have mobilized a total of more than 226,000 investigators to track down the person concerned on suspicion of robbery and murder, but no arrest has been made. The statute of limitations for robbery and murder was abolished in 2010 just before the case was about to expire. Eighty people, including investigators, distributed fans asking citizens for their cooperation, informing them that a reward of up to 6 million yen, or about 40,000 dollars, would be paid for any important clues linked to the suspect. Tokyo police say a special investigation headquarters has received a total of 1,678 pieces of information over the past 30 years, including 32 over the past year. But none of them have been connected directly to the perpetrator.
CTV News
27-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Japan executes man convicted of murder for killing and dismembering 9 people in his apartment
Takahiro Shiraishi leaves a police station in Hachioji, suburbs of Tokyo, in November 2017. (Takuya Inaba/Kyodo News via AP, File) TOKYO — A man convicted of murder for killing and dismembering nine people in his apartment near Tokyo was executed Friday, Japan's Justice Ministry said. Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the 'Twitter killer,' was sentenced to death in 2020 for the killings in 2017 of the nine victims, most of whom had posted suicidal thoughts on social media. He was also convicted of sexually abusing female victims. Police arrested him later that year after finding the bodies of eight teenage girls and women as well as one man in cold-storage cases in his apartment. Investigators said Shiraishi approached the victims via Twitter, offering to assist them with their suicidal wishes. He killed the three teenage girls and five women after raping them. He also killed the boyfriend of one of the women to silence him. 'The case caused the extremely serious outcomes and dealt a major shockwave and unease to the society,' Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki told an emergency news conference. He said he signed the execution earlier this week, but did not witness Shiraishi's hanging. The execution was carried out as calls grow to abolish capital punishment or increase transparency in Japan after the acquittal of the world's longest-serving death row inmate Iwao Hakamada last year. Suzuki justified the need for the execution in Japan, noting a recent government survey shows an overwhelming majority of the public still supports capital punishment, though opposition has somewhat increased. 'I believe it is not appropriate to abolish execution,' Suzuki said, adding there is growing concern about serious crime. Shiraishi was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House in secrecy with nothing disclosed until the execution was done. Japan now has 105 people on death row, including 49 seeking retrials, Suzuki said. Executions are carried out in secrecy in Japan, where prisoners are not even informed of their fate until the morning of their hanging. Since 2007, Japan has begun disclosing the names of those executed and some details of their crimes, but disclosures are still limited. Japan and the U.S. are the only two countries in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that retain capital punishment. Japan's most recent execution, in July 2022, was of a man who killed seven people in a vehicle crash and stabbing rampage in a crowded Tokyo shopping district of Akihabara in 2018. Japan's crime rate is relatively low, but it has seen some high-profile mass killings in recent years. Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press
NHK
19-05-2025
- Business
- NHK
Seven-Eleven Japan starts robot delivery trial on roads
Seven-Eleven Japan says it has launched a trial using delivery robots on public roads. The convenience-store operator believes such a service could eventually help it deal with a worsening labor shortage. Two 7-Eleven stores in Tokyo's Hachioji area are taking part. Customers use an app to send their orders. Unmanned robots then head to the destinations. Sensors and other features detect road bumps and respond to traffic lights. The trial is reportedly the first by a major convenience-store operator in Japan in which robots run on public roads. Permission to do that was granted by the local police. The company hopes that in the future robots rather than humans can make more customer deliveries amid the shortage of workers. Seven-Eleven Japan Touhara Hikaru says, "In either urban or rural areas, we would like this service to be a means of reaching customers who have difficulty shopping." The company plans to call on nearby residents to participate. The firm plans to consider expanding the service to other areas after examining the results.
Japan Times
19-05-2025
- Automotive
- Japan Times
Seven-Eleven testing delivery robots in Japan
Amid a serious truck driver shortage, convenience store chain Seven-Eleven Japan began a trial delivery service using robots on public roads in a western Tokyo suburb on Monday. In the experimental project involving two stores in the city of Hachioji, two robots at each outlet carry items ordered through the 7NOW delivery service app and loaded manually with them. The four-wheeled box-type robots, which can travel up to 6 kph, are designed to run on sidewalks while following traffic lights and dodging obstacles. After conducting the tests until February next year, Seven-Eleven Japan will consider the feasibility of the robot delivery service, which is expected to help the company cope with a driver shortage and better serve older customers who have difficulty going out shopping.
