Signs, Assassinations, and Name Games

The news of an assassination in Japan must not be viewed in a void. It is part of our violent times.

As St. John's Day was passing into June 25, 2022, a gay bar in Oslo, Norway was the site of a shooting. Two people were killed and twenty-one people were wounded in a mass shooting in Oslo, Norway. Police are treating the incident as an "act of Islamist terrorism" targeting the Oslo LGBTQ pride event. The suspect is identified as 42-year-old Norwegian Iranian Zaniar Matapour, who moved from Iran to Norway in 1991 when he was 12.

Then on the 4th of July 2022, in Highland Park, Illinois, a mass sniper incident occurred. Highland Park formerly was known as St. John's. St. John's Avenue is a major thoroughfare.

On July 4, 2022, a mass shooting took place during an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, United States. The shooting occurred at 10:14 a.m. CDT (UTC−05:00), roughly 15 minutes after the parade had started. Seven people were fatally shot, and 46 others were wounded by gunfire or injured in the ensuing panic.
Authorities apprehended Robert Eugene Crimo III eight hours after the shooting and charged him the next day with seven counts of first-degree murder. 

Seven people were killed and 46 others were injured during the attack. Five of the victims—all adults—died at the scene and two died at the hospital.

Crimo left an extensive social media trail of numerological signs, symbols, and clippings related to his Trump rally appearances, neo-Nazi leanings, and obsession with Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy ("St. John" to some).

Crimo: 4 (Fourth of) 7 (July)

Name Game: Uvaldo/Uvale

Highland Park/Parkland High/Parkland Hospital

Crimo was obsessed with Jack Ruby killing LHO. Both JFK and LHO taken to Parkland Hospital. To die.

On January 3, 1967, Lee Harvey Oswald assassin Jack Ruby died at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas, the same hospital where Oswald died and where President John F. Kennedy had been pronounced dead following his assassination in 1963. 

Georgia Guidestones bombed on July 6, 2022. They are 7 miles down Georgia 77. Destroyed and then down.

===

Crimo was a Trump supporter and was photographed at Trump rallies. Was he also stalking Trump?

Next up, political assassinations? The wait was short.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe 

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dies at 67 after assassination in Nara, Japan.

An assassination of an Abe in Japan.

On Friday, July 8, 2022, Japan time. 

Police said that the suspect Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, admitted he thought the ex-prime minister was connected to a religious organization he has a grudge with.

The alleged killer was a Nara resident and had worked at Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Forces for three years, but now appeared to be unemployed, cops said.

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Da Vinci and Violence Activate 2019

2019 begins...

Tokyo 

Tokyo

Nine people were hurt, one seriously, when a man deliberately rammed his van (shown above) into crowds celebrating New Year’s Eve along a famous Tokyo street, just after midnight, Tuesday, January 1, 2019.

With an “intent to murder,” 21-year-old Kazuhiro Kusakabe from Osaka (250 miles sw of Tokyo) drove a small vehicle into Takeshita Street in Tokyo’s fashion district of Harajuku at 10 minutes past midnight, a police spokesman said. About 20 liters of kerosene were found in the vehicle. Kusakabe told police he was acting in “retribution for the death penalty,” without giving more precise details.

Bottrop

Essen

Meanwhile, a 50-year-old German man plowed a car into a crowd in Bottrop, Germany, injuring four, then drove to Essen and hit four others in a similar fashion. The second incident occurred near the Museum Folkwang in North Rhine-Westphalia, Essen. He appeared to be targeting people from Syria and Afghanistan. One Syrian woman victim had life-threatening injuries.

Manchester

Within about the same timeframe (across time zones), on Monday, December 31, 2018, at the Manchester, U.K.'s Victoria Train Station, a stabbing of three, including a police officer, took place as people were heading to New Year's Eve celebrations. The man was heard shouting “Allah” at Victoria station.

And how will it end?

h/t MP

Aum Executions

The leader of the Japanese doomsday cult that carried out a deadly 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway was executed Friday July 6, 2018, along with six of his followers, decades after the horrific crime. Seven members of Aum, in total, were hanged.

Aum Shinrikyo members executed on July 6, 2018:
Shoko Asahara, leader of Aum Shinrikyo
Yoshihiro Inoue, Aum's "head of intelligence" and chief coordinator of the Tokyo subway attack
Tomomitsu Niimi, the getaway driver for Ikuo Hayashi, one of the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway attack
Tomomasa Nakagawa, one of the perpetrators of the Sakamoto family murder
Kiyohide Hayakawa, Aum's "construction minister", convicted of strangling a young cult member in 1989 suspected of dissidence
Seiichi Endo, the "head scientist" of Aum Shinrikyo
Masami Tsuchiya, Aum Shinrikyo's chief chemist and director of the sarin gas manufacturing

Aum Shinrikyo members awaiting execution as of July 6, 2018:
Yasuo Hayashi, one of the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway attack
Kenichi Hirose, one of the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway attack
Toru Toyoda, one of the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway attack
Masato Yokoyama, one of the perpetrators of the Tokyo subway attack
Kazuaki Okazaki, one of the perpetrators of the Sakamoto family murder
Satoro Hashimoto, one of the perpetrators of the Sakamoto family murder

Shoko Asahara, the charismatic near-blind leader of the Aum Shinrikyo sect, had been on death row for more than ten years for crimes including the nerve agent attack, which shocked the world and prompted a massive crackdown on the cult. Thirteen were killed and 6000 injured in the subway attack. Others were killed in tortures and other attacks.

Japan's Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa confirmed the seven executions, saying the Aum members were responsible for "extremely atrocious and grave acts that were unprecedented and should never happen again".

Aleph, formerly Aum Shinrikyo (オウム真理教 Oumu Shinrikyō), is a Japanese doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1984. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been responsible for another smaller sarin attack the previous year.
The group never confessed. They claim that those who carried out attacks did so secretly, without being known to other executives and ordinary believers. Asahara broadcast his singing, insisting on his innocence through a radio broadcast on a signal they purchased in Russia and directed toward Japan. On July 6, 2018, after exhausting all appeals, Asahara and six other followers were executed by Japan, as punishment for the 1995 attacks.
Aum Shinrikyo, which split into Aleph and Hikari no Wa in 2007, has been formally designated a terrorist organization by several countries, including the European Union, Russia, Canada, Kazakhstan, and the United States. Japan's Public Security Examination Commission considers Aleph and Hikari no Wa to be branches of a "dangerous religion" and it announced in January 2015 that they would remain under surveillance for three more years. The Japanese government ended surveillance of Hikari no Wa in 2017, but continued to keep Aleph under watch. Source.

See also: March 20, 1995 ~ Tokyo subway sarin attack. 地下鉄サリン事件

Incidents before 1995, and

Sarin attack and related incidents.

Friday's hangings were the largest simultaneous execution in Japan since 1911, when 11 people were hanged for plotting to assassinate the emperor.

1911 - 11 hangings.

Germany Discovers The Copycat Effect

The German publication Deutsche Welle, on July 26, 2016, after a series of shootings and rampages (Amokläufe) in their country, published "Mass Killers Inspire 'Copycat' Attackers."

In the wake of all the carnage, the violence could not be ignored. The article began,

There is growing evidence that an act of mass murder will inspire others to commit similar crimes. Media reports on carnages like the ones in Munich or Japan, play a crucial role in spawning "copycat" killers.

On July 22, Ali David S. struck the Olympia shopping mall in Munich, exactly five years after right-wing extremist Andres Breivik killed 77 people in Norway. There is a possibility that the Norwegian was a role model for the Munich killer.

To me, of course, what is remarkable is that during this summer of 2014, a dozen years about it was released, the media is discovering my book.

Deutsche Welle noted,

News organizations need to pay attention to the choice of words while reporting on such incidents, says Loren Coleman, author of the book The Copycat Effect: How The Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines. 

According to Coleman, one should not, for example, report on "successful" gun attacks or "failed" suicides. Stereotypes such as "the boy next door" or "loner" should also be avoided, he adds.

There is no German language edition of The Copycat Effect, but it can be obtained in English in Germany.

Sagamihara Knife Attack Leaves 19 Dead

Japanese news agencies are reporting that 19 people are dead and 20 injured following a knife attack in Sagamihara, Kanazawa Prefecture, outside Tokyo.

A knife-wielding man attacked a residential care facility for the disabled at 2:30 am local time (July 26, 2016).  A former staff member escaped, then returned, and turned himself into police.

Reports indicate that over 45 people have been injured.

Mass violence such as this is rare in Japan, and an incident like this has not occurred for decades.

An ancient city, Sagamihara was home to the Yokoyama clan, one of the seven warrior clans of the Musashi region during the early Kamakura period. The city has a population of over 700,000 people.

Thanks for the alert from Mike Playfair.

Maine Earthquake

I was sitting at home, when at 7:12 pm Eastern, my house shook like it has never before. (Freight trains roll through this part of Portland, a block and half away, so I thought when it started, it was just another train. But this was shaky like no train going by.)

I've felt earthquakes before. During the parts of two years I lived in San Francisco, earthquakes, mostly small ones, were not unusual. The biggest quake I remember before tonight was one in southern Illinois, on November 9, 1968. It hit at 11:02 am, and it measured 5.4. I vividly recall I was working with mental health patients at Anna State Hospital, in a large hall, used as a gym, on the hospital campus. We all raced outside, although I did wait a bit under the arch doorway of that grand hall. Reading about that New Madrid quake nowadays, I see what a large event it was and how lucky we were.

Tonight's earthquake is said to have measured at first 4.5, then it was upgraded to 4.6, definitely the largest in New England in a long time. Eyewitnesses across the Boston area reported feeling the quake for up to 20 to 30 seconds. (Wednesday morning, and the feds have downgraded it to 4.0. I must say, they must not be New Englanders and survived that one, cause it sure didn't feel like a little 4.0 quake.)

The epicenter is said to be centered west of Hollis and Lake Arrowhead, Maine, 23 miles west of Portland, where I live. But more importantly, the epicenter was first said to be 17 miles deep, then later only 3 (and on Wednesday, 4.1) miles deep. That is a very shallow earthquake, and probably why it felt so powerful here.

Mainers are tough people, and there does not seem to be any damage reported from this quake yet. (Wednesday: Some cracked foundations and chimneys are being discussed.)

Standing on the sidelines at a soccer game in Waterboro Tuesday night, Kevin St. Jarre saw the spectators in the bleachers across the field suddenly stand up. Then a ripple, a "landwave," began rolling from the bleachers and heading toward him.

"It came across the field, and it passed beneath my feet and then behind me to where the team was sitting on the bench," said St. Jarre, who coaches the Massabesic High School varsity girls, who were playing against Scarborough High School.

"We pulled the players off the field and took a five minute break and calmed the girls down." ~ Tom Bell, writing in the Portland Press Herald, October 17, 2012.

What surprised me was the explosion of humor on the social media. Here are photographic samples of the "damage" and how people immediately reacted to this earthquake.

An earthquake hit off Japan also on October 16th. But thirty minutes after the Maine earthquake, one hit in New Zealand.