Police: Driver didn’t slow down when plowing into children

Asahi News
May 2, 2025

Children walk to school accompanied by police in Osaka's Nishinari Ward on May 2. (Ko Sendo)

OSAKA--A man suspected of attempting to murder schoolchildren showed no signs of braking or slowing down when the vehicle he was driving plowed into the pupils, police said.

Seven children were hit by the SUV on their way home from the municipal Senbon Elementary School at around 1:30 p.m. on May 1 in the Senbonnaka 2-chome district of Nishinari Ward.

Their injuries range from minor to serious.

According to investigators, a former police officer working as a school support worker near the scene witnessed the car approaching the children and then crashing into them.

He told police the vehicle’s brake lights never flashed during the incident.

Investigators also found no signs of braking on the pavement.

They said this shows that the suspect, Yuki Yazawa, 28, carried out an indiscriminate attack with a strong intention to kill.

Police earlier quoted Yazawa, from Higashi-Murayama city in Tokyo, as saying: “I was fed up with everything, so I crashed my car into a crowd of people, intending to kill them. I tried to run over the schoolchildren.”

Yazawa told police that he worked as a medical radiographer until April, when he quit his job.

He rented the SUV from a company at Shin-Osaka Station on April 29, two days before the incident, investigators said.

Prefectural police are retracing his steps and trying to determine why he decided to come to Osaka.

On the morning of May 2, police and parents accompanied their children to the elementary school in the pouring rain.

A 29-year-old mother who saw off her second-grader son in front of the school said: “It’s heartbreaking to think about the kids who were victims. My son, whose classmate was involved, is afraid, and he told me to come pick him up at school.”

A father in his 30s of another second-grader said: “The incident happened yesterday, so I decided to accompany my son this morning. As a parent, incidents like this make me feel scared.”