crime

Woman arrested after 5-month-old son dies in car while she plays pachinko

80 Comments

Police in Okinawa on Tuesday arrested a 40-year-old woman after her 5-month-old son died in her car while she played pachinko.

According to police, the woman, identified as Kiyono Arakaki, left her son in the car for six hours from 10:30 a.m. until around 5 p.m. on June 10 while she played pachinko in Tomigusuku in southern Okinawa. Fuji TV quoted police as saying that the child died of heatstroke. The car windows were all shut, police said.

The woman told police she thought the child would be alright.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the temperature outside reached a high of 29.8 degrees that day.

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80 Comments
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Do the same thing to her so she can find her son's spirit and apologize. Don't let her go with a slap on the wrist and condolences from the judge.

21 ( +21 / -1 )

You know, it's slighly understandable when this sort of perverse selfish stupidity happens when the parent is, say, 19, and dumb. Doesn't excuse it, but I can see where the potential for thinking a child might survive in a hot car might arise. But this woman is 40, for crying out loud. This goes far beyond inexcusable.

How many more kids are going to die this summer because of this kind of negligence? And when is society going to start taking a harder look at the addiction issues behind gambling that compel people to do something so insane as leave a 5-month-old in a hot car for six hours in order to play pachinko?

13 ( +16 / -3 )

God gives children to those who doesn't worth to have them.

2 ( +10 / -8 )

Here we go. Let the summer time stupidity begin.

16 ( +19 / -3 )

Poor kid. But I feel there's more to the story we haven't heard about yet.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

But what about all the passerby who for sure must have heard and seen the child. They had three options, call the police, brake the window or ignore the child. Sadely they choosed the third option.

-6 ( +10 / -16 )

It will get worse when the casinos comes. The government needs to establish education, signs etc around these gambling locations...

3 ( +7 / -4 )

Sentence her to the same amount of time at the same time of day in the same car.

3 ( +6 / -3 )

what about all the passerby who for sure must have heard and seen the child.

If the child was asleep, and then unconscious, there would be no sound. A 5-month old lying flat in a baby seat would not be visible from outside unless a person were right up near the car and looking in at the window. Don't blame passers-by. This is 100% the fault of the stupid, worthless so-called mother.

Who leaves a baby unattended for six hours in a comfortable, air-conditioned room, never mind in a sealed car in a carpark in the middle of summer?

29 ( +31 / -3 )

the temperature outside reached a high of 29.8 degrees that day. She told police she thought the child would be alright.

You know, I actually believe she thought the child would be alright. Leaving kids in cars is just common practice here. The temp inside the car could have been double the outside temp. The kid probably died within two or three hours of being shut in the car and she played pachinko while her kid was already dead. Every year there are a few cases of this. My personal favorite is from a few years ago when a young couple left their three month kid under the seat of their scooter while the played pachinko. They also commented, they thought the kid would be alright. Ignorance can be cured, but stupidity seems to be endemic. RIP little kid. You are probably in a better place than growing up with a stupid pachinko junky.

0 ( +12 / -12 )

It will get worse when the casinos comes. The government needs to establish education, signs etc around these gambling locations...

Sadly I doubt if that will do much good. There are warning signs outside pachinko parlors already, not to mention countless news reports of this happening before, but obviously people like this woman are just too stupid to pay any attention.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

OMFG. Rest in peace, little guy. You'll get a better deal next time around. Not much condolence, but it's the best I can find. I hope at least you felt content during your five months on earth.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

These cases are starting to look less and less like accidents and more and more like premeditated murder. Police should look at how frequently these people play pachinko or whatever it is that takes several hours while they leave there children inside a sealed car. These incidents are far too common and anyone with a half-a-brain would know the death traps they are placing their vulnerable children in, so something tells me there are some people out their who might find this an easy alibi to end their parental responsibilities with the least possible consequences.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

But what about all the passerby who for sure must have heard and seen the child.

This is most certainly not a *"let's blame the passersby** situation. As Cleo accurately noted, there's little chance anyone walking by would have noticed r heard a 5-month-old in a baby seat in a sealed-up parked car.

Based on what we know so far, the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of this woman who scarcely deserves the title mother.

4 ( +7 / -4 )

@Cleo

I totally agree. A 5 month old baby needs to be fed and changed at least 2 or 3 times within a 6 hour period. Any parent would know this, which leads me to believe that this was a deliberate act

10 ( +14 / -5 )

I think the mother knew exactly what she was doing. There's no way anyone should be leaving a 5-month old unattended for that long anywhere, let alone a vehicle out in the sun.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

I think pachinkos should make a rule where as in parent bring kids can NOT enter the bldg. Perhaps a bit difficult to check but it would be worth it

1 ( +4 / -2 )

or have some staff make rounds in the parking lot to check if there are any babies in the car once in a while.

8 ( +12 / -4 )

We need a law in which Pachinko should be held equally responsible (make them to check their parking lots to make sure nobody is leaving their child/pets in there). Something like drinking-driving law (restaurant are also responsible if their drunk customer drives car)

9 ( +14 / -5 )

Simon FostonJul. 23, 2014 - 08:16AM JST

It will get worse when the casinos comes. The government needs to establish education, signs etc around these gambling locations... Sadly I doubt if that will do much good. There are warning signs outside pachinko parlors already, not to mention countless news reports of this happening before, but obviously people like this woman are just too stupid to pay any attention.

What about a cute mascot ?

0 ( +4 / -4 )

We all know that common sense is not a strong point among Japanese people.

No, "we" certainly do NOT know that. Please don't lump the whole race in with a few stupid people. Would you like it if you were classed along with the low lifes and criminals from your own country? I didn't think so.

14 ( +16 / -2 )

Ah, the priorities of some people! This 'mother-of-the-year' is yet another of the constant examples every year of why some people are not fit to be parents, let alone fit into society.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

@ wontond - I agree. At 40 (kinda old to have a baby anyway), I'm bettin she was a single parent and the "father" wasn't involved. The Okinawan sun is brutal. There's no way she didn't know what would happen. She didn't want the responsibility/impediment to her lifestyle. So she tried to make it look like an accident. But that's just my opinion.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Don't we see it's every year - the mums here need to be educated not arrested. I never see these public type announcements on TV here though.

-13 ( +2 / -15 )

You know, I actually believe she thought the child would be alright. We all know that common sense is not a strong point among Japanese people. Leaving kids in cars is just common practice here.

if it were "common practice," you would be reading about kids dying in cars everyday. yes, a very small percentage of parents are idiots, but that doesn't mean the whole country is filled with them. leave your racism at the door.

10 ( +14 / -4 )

Some people just shouldn't breed.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Japanese people seem to think this is okay, I've seen so many people do this and not understand the dangers, even in mildly warm weather the car heats up 10 times more

-4 ( +8 / -12 )

@sensei258

@ wontond - I agree. At 40 (kinda old to have a baby anyway), I'm bettin she was a single parent and the "father" wasn't involved. The Okinawan sun is brutal. There's no way she didn't know what would happen. She didn't want the responsibility/impediment to her lifestyle

Whether she was a single mother or not (some of us start out "married" and get divorced along the way) if she wasn't willing to take on the responsibility of having a child, she could have thought of having an abortion - which is perfectly "legal" in Japan. I just cannot understand any woman going through childbirth (with our first, the baby and I BOTH nearly died) just to let a 5 month old die in an "oven" of a car. She MUST have known ! Just getting into my car, before the engine and "aircon" kick in, is already stifling !

0 ( +1 / -1 )

At this very moment there are numerous infants, toddlers and young children who have been left in stupidly avoidable situations that may up resulting in their death. This is not and has never been unique to Japan. The more we educate people to have a routine before they walk away from their car that ensures they check for their child the safer and better it will be; the more we invest in technology that prevents people walking away from their cars the better and safer it will be. The stupidity of supposed parents really does know no bounds at times. Selfish. Stupid and others.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

I can`t help but notice how every summer I read stories exactly like this in the news almost weekly and they always, without exception, involve pachinko parlors.

While I totally agree that the parents in such cases bear ultimate responsibility and should be punished accordingly, I also think the law should impose some liability on pachinko parlors for these incidents as well. Their whole business model is based on sucking people of moderate intelligence into an activity that is both addictive and one in which you can easily lose track of time. By providing huge sweltering parking lots in which these people can leave infants to die they really are facilitating if not encouraging these incidents.

This is I think a compelling argument mainly because the incidents could be so easily avoided if, instead of building sprawling parking lots with no shade, they would instead use multi-story parkades for customer parking. If they did that, while parents would still probably neglect their children at least they wouldn`t die of heat under the blistering sun. Most pachinko parlors in urban centres already do this, so it is entirely feasible, but not facing any legal liability for the deaths on their property the ones in the suburbs have no incentive to do so.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

We need a law in which Pachinko should be held equally responsible (make them to check their parking lots to make sure nobody is leaving their child/pets in there). Something like drinking-driving law (restaurant are also responsible if their drunk customer drives car)

No, we certainly do not need to make the pachinko shops equally responsible. There is no reason whatsoever to divide the blame for this and the idea that a business should be responsible for manslaughter-going-on-murder is just ridiculous. It's sufficient that they post signs warning people about this, but at some point adults have to take responsibility for their actions.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

There is no way this woman could have lived through the past 20 years without hearing the many tales of kids dying in hot cars in Pachinko parking lots. I can only assume she went out that morning with this plan in mind. Similar to the case currently happening in Georgia, where both parents have been found to have done pre-death research on heat-deaths in cars, this woman should be charged with premeditated murder.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

I honestly didn't think it was possible to be that stupid. Perhaps it was a deliberate way of getting rid of the child.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Maybe Japan should make a law that it is illegal to have person(s) in a car without a driver inside.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

Toshiko

Maybe Japan should make a law that it is illegal to have person(s) in a car without a driver inside

why a driver? as long as there is AN ADULT to supervise a child/baby, no need the adult to be a driver.

gogogo

Japanese people seem to think this is okay

huh??? you must have lost your mind if japanese actually think this is okay.

Well I want to know if this woman has any other child/children because it's kind of unusual for a 40 year old woman to have her first baby and if she has other children, they really need to be taken to more responsible person.

It blows my mind that a mother can do this to her baby.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

I hate to see this kind of news, stupid pachinko people don't learn.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Sentence her to the same amount of time at the same time of day in the same car.

Still not fair. She's not as helpless as a 5-month-old baby.

I have trouble not believing this was deliberate. An absolute failure as a human being in any case.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

No, we certainly do not need to make the pachinko shops equally responsible. There is no reason whatsoever to divide the blame for this and the idea that a business should be responsible for manslaughter-going-on-murder is just ridiculous. It's sufficient that they post signs warning people about this, but at some point adults have to take responsibility for their actions.

I agree that they shouldn`t be held "equally" responsible - in the sense that the ultimate responsibility of the negligent parent should in no way be diminished - but I see no problem with holding pachinko parlors liable to some degree when their own business model just invites this sort of irresponsible behavior.

The notion that it is sufficient to post warning signs is, frankly, laughable. This country is already awash with useless warning signs that nobody pays attention to, it is the ultimate lawyerly way of trying to wash one's hands of responsibility for anything. I'm pretty sure most pachinko parlors already have tons of warning signs and they have obviously not been effective at stopping these incidents, nor has reliance on appeals to parental responsibility alone.

Pachinko parlors are the only party in a realistic position to put a stop to these deaths by simply adopting any one of a number of low cost solutions mentioned above (use of multi story parkades instead of shadeless parking lots, hiring of personel to patrol parking lots, etc).

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Sadly this type of incident happens everywhere. Earlier this month a man was charged with murder in Georgia, U.S.A. after leaving his infant son in a car for seven hours. Some people seem to think that this is an easy way to get rid of an unwanted child with minimal punishment by claiming afterwards that was accidental. It should automatically be classed as murder.

This woman is 40 years old. She could drive a car and find her way to a pachinko parlor, so the stupidity defense doesn't stand. She should be charged with murder. And the suffering of the poor baby should be taken into account when she is sentenced.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Due to the time of year, I just received a link to the following excellent, tragic article from the Washington Post on death by hyperthermia of children in cars http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html?wpisrc=nl_icymi, which points out this can happen to anyone, even a rocket scientist.

Due to the death of a child of a NASA engineer, engineers from NASA created a device to warn drivers of the presence of a child in a rear seat but failed to find a maker or market for the product since, their surveys show, people believe it could not happen to them, only to others. So rather than decrying the behaviour of others, let us be on our guard.

That said, I think that pachinko addiction is probably part of the cause and it saddens me (too @Benji7) that casinos will be coming.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

40 years old and she thought the child would be all right!!! Some people shouldn't have children and this nut case is one that should have checked in to the looney barn a long time ago!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@fishyJUL. 23, 2014 - 12:27PM JST Toshiko Maybe Japan should make a law that it is illegal to have person(s) in a car without a driver inside why a driver? as long as there is AN ADULT to supervise a child/baby, no need the adult to be a driver.

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I usually live in Nevada USA. I don't know other states but in Nevada, it is illegal to have someone stays in a car without driver sitting in the drivers' seat/ So, I have to get out when I ride in my children;s car. I have an old people's placard that enable my children (grand-children, too) e to park in handicap parking area. /Nevada DMV guide clearly state that unmoving car can not have anyone inside without a driver at driver's seat. That is why I got the idea. Often I much prefer to stay in the car and take nap but if I do so, both driver and personIs) who stay in the car get arrested. Well, adult is not necessarily behave responsible in USA.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Why is it that when this happens each and every year (often more than twice) the parent has the same stupid excuse....."I thought that the child would be alright" . I guess it just goes to show the intelligence levels of the people playing pachinko in this country. dumb dumb dumb. Sadly this will not be the last child who dies of heatstroke while their dumbar5e parent plays pachinko inside the air conditioned parlour.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Sarcasm On:

Well this will never happen in Nagoya because once a month the cute owl mascot of the Aichi Police hands out hand bills to passersby at Nagoya Station alerting them to the danger of leaving pets and children in cars during the summer.

Sarcasm Off: Yet one still sees many children and pets left in cars with the engine off at conbinis and stores.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I guess it just goes to show the intelligence levels of the people playing pachinko

Well, if a person thinks 5 hours sitting in a noisy, smoke-filled environment mesmerised while little silver balls fall and jiggle in front of them, in the 'company' of a hundred other zombies doing the same, is five hours that couldn't have been better spent doing virtually anything else bar poking his own eyes out with an index finger, I guess you have right there an indication of that person's intelligence.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

@Benji7JUL. 23, 2014 - 07:54AM JST It will get worse when the casinos comes. The government needs to establish education, signs etc around these gambling locations..

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Casinos might come or might not come to Japan. The multi billion dollars casinos proposed are not like pachinko houses. Each parking areas, casinos have security guards stations, Not just outside but 2 or more than 2 stories of parking areas inside of buildings. They have to ensure cars are not stolen. Security cameras are all over. .Huge parking areas inside of buildings. There are signs to indicate handicap area. The parking areas inside of buildings are usually near restaurants area. theaters or entertainment theater areas. Employees park in employees parking areas that are above customer parking lots.

Sands, MGM, Wynn etc do not operate pachinko houses. There is no pachinko houses in Nevada anyway. (never l)heard pachinko houses in other states in which casinos are legal. So, casinos will not create this kind of tragic stories.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Every summer this same sad story. I really wish we would not have to hear that anymore. Do these people never learn?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

So rather than decrying the behaviour of others, let us be on our guard.

Agreed we should be on our guard, but it's incomprehensible to me as to how anybody can leave a young child alone in a car for any reason (very quick dash to an ATM across the road and back, etc, understandable assuming due care is taken).

3 ( +3 / -0 )

ReformedBasher

"it's incomprehensible to me as to how anyone can leave a young child alone in a car."

From the article quoted above.

The problem is this simple: People think this could never happen to them.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Timtak,

Excellent article, although to be honest, I couldn't finish reading it. It just made me want to cry too much. Yes, it can happen to anyone. But . . .

This woman didn't forget her child. She knew her child was in the car.

"The woman told police she thought the child would be alright."

That's a crime. She needs to be held accountable for murder, via negligence at the very least.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

or have some staff make rounds in the parking lot to check if there are any babies in the car once in a while.

Many already do that and some actually have play areas for kids. Which I find sick and twisted.

We need a law in which Pachinko should be held equally responsible (make them to check their parking lots to make sure nobody is leaving their child/pets in there). Something like drinking-driving law (restaurant are also responsible if their drunk customer drives car) 100% disagree. Why should they be held responsible for stupid parents? Why should they have to pay staff to ensure that dumb parents aren't leaving kids in the their car? I 100% disagree with the bar thing too. It has become far too easy for folks to shift personal responsibilty onto a company rather than taking it themseleves.

Sorry but this is too much. a 40 year old woman thinks a child will be fine in a car for six hours in the summer? No way. Perhaps a 40 year old woman who got knocked up with a kid she doesn't want and thinks she can get away with murder by playing stupid. Throw the book at her.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

You know, it's slighly understandable when this sort of perverse selfish stupidity happens when the parent is, say, 19, and dumb. Doesn't excuse it, but I can see where the potential for thinking a child might survive in a hot car might arise. But this woman is 40, for crying out loud.

You should never judge a person's maturity based on their age. There are some really, really grown-up 16 year-olds in this world and some very, very stupid 60 year-olds. There's no general rule to this.

I also always assumed that people should logically KNOW that leaving a child or pet in a hot car without open windows isn't a good idea (especially since that has happened before), but again... other people sadly don't see things the same way you do.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

How can any parent do this to their own child? The child is only 5 months old, you can't leave him/her alone, even more so alone in a car parked in the heat! And the child was left alone for what, 6 hours??? What a poor innocent thing, RIP little one... :(

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Can you imagine how that baby must have felt so abandoned by his mother . She could have gone and checked on him from time to time that might have saved his life.rest in peace little guy god save you

0 ( +1 / -1 )

So, casinos will not create this kind of tragic stories.

Maybe not, but they will, without a doubt, create plenty of other kinds of tragic stories. Gambling is an addiction for many players, even pachinko players. To say these "parlors" have no responsibility for these kinds of tragedies is just not true. Signs are not enough and almost meaningless because no one takes any notice of them. Just a cheap effort by parlor owners to go through the motions of pretending to be responsible. Gamblers easily lose sense of time passed (there are no clocks in casinos or pachinko parlors just to make sure that the suckers will keep on playing as long as possible). Owners of pachinko parlors should be made to employ attendants to patrol their car parks. These places earn literally billions of yen (and many have extremely shady connections), so they can easily afford it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Toshiko:Your post perfectly illustrates why Japan needs no such law. Why should you not as, as an adult, be able to sit and nap in your car? You are more than capable of getting out if it gets too hot.

@senseiman:How does a pachinko parlor´s business model invites this kind of behavior? Yeah, I get that pachinko parlor´s are not exactly pillars of the community, but your comment is kind of a stretch.

Furthermore, hiring additional staff or buildind multistory car parks are not cheap.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Since she has a passion for gambling I say let her play Russian roulette. Where as you have a gun which has a chamber for 6 rounds of ammunition but you only put 1 bullet in the chamber of the gun and give her 5 chances to spin the chamber and pull the trigger of the gun on each spin once it stops!!! I bet she sweat like hell!! Lets see if she wins!!!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Nevada DMV guide clearly state that unmoving car can not have anyone inside without a driver at driver's seat.

That's part of Safety measures for driving, you cannot have a vehicle with people who cannot drive them, either be a child or adult, if for some reason the handbrake gets loose, it could cause an accident.

"The woman told police she thought the child would be alright."

That's a crime. She needs to be held accountable for murder, via negligence at the very least.

I thought at the beginning that there might be a case of stupidity and postpartum depression assuming that the woman is a 40yro and having her first baby (a reason to be in a pachinko parlor). But then, if she says to the police that she thought that the baby would be alright it sounded to me as an excuse to pass a deliberated murder for negligent murder, I mean, it was six hours! you cannot leave a baby a 5-month old baby unattended for that long! it takes more or less 3 months on average for a baby to have sleeping habits that last longer than 3 hours, so to expect that a baby would be quiet after 6, it goes beyond stupidity, and in this case she deliberately left a baby alone for 6 hours and "thought" the baby was alright, to me that thinking is not negligence, it is murder

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@senseiman:How does a pachinko parlor´s business model invites this kind of behavior? Yeah, I get that pachinko parlor´s are not exactly pillars of the community, but your comment is kind of a stretch.

Well, they provide a service that, by its nature, encourages people to become engrossed in it and completely lose track of time. Nothing wrong in and of itself with that, but when you also provide parking in the sweltering heat for those customers, and know that a lot of them are likely to be mothers....and further know that year after year these children`s deaths pile up on your own doorstep....how can they possibly justify not taking action? How can we justify not pursuing policies that will force them to do something?

I mean, the events pretty much speak for themselves. You dont hear about mothers leaving their kids to die in cars while they spend 8 hours at a beauty salon or grocery store. It is always pachinko parlors and not other types of businesses. This is something very specific to that type of business and the fact that these deaths continue to happen again and again is ample evidence that the pachinko industry as a whole (not the most savory industry to begin with) simply doesnt give a crap that children are literally dying entirely preventable deaths on their property.

Just to stress my point - none of this means I think that the responsbility of the parents for these deaths should in any way be diluted. But to allow the industry to basically just ignore the problem is outrageous.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

This is pachinko playing mother stories in Japan and not casino criticking topic, but there are two items you usually do not find in casino level floors. Clocks and windows. But this is not the article about casinos. poor baby died because mother concentrated on playing pachinkos in hot Okinawa. Pachinko parlors exist in Japan because pachinko is classified as an entertainment machines in Japan. So, more and more people are addicted with maybe-win-today. mentality, neglecting anything.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Rest in peace, little Angel. I don't even want to imagine his last moments on earth. May the child-killer be punished with a very long custodial sentence.

As for the pachinko companies - why not make it compulsory for EVERY gambling establishment in Japan to hire a guard to roam the parking-lot? It won't save every child from such awful endings, but it will surely save a few. Gambling is massive here - for better or worse - and is not going away.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

or have some staff make rounds in the parking lot to check if there are any babies in the car once in a while.

Many already do. The good ones won't even allow kids to walk across the parking lot to take a short cut. I sat in the car one time with my wife and wife's niece in a pachinko parking lot waiting for my parents-in-law to come out shortly. The security guard knocked on the window and said kids are not allowed in the parking lot and we needed to leave pronto. He watched our car all the way until it was out on the road.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@BurakuminDesJUL. 23, 2014 - 11:36PM JST

As for the pachinko companies - why not make it compulsory for EVERY gambling establishment in Japan to hire a guard to roam the parking-lot? It won't save every child from such awful endings, but it will surely save a few. Gambling is massive here - for better or worse - and is not going away.

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Every gambling establishment? Since pachinkos are not classified as gambling machines, you mean yakuzas' illegal gambling establishments? Gamblings are not legal in Japan.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Gamblings are not legal in Japan

Umm - sure - people just play pachinko for "amusement only"!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Simple solution. Outlaw Pachinko!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@BurakuminDesJUL. 24, 2014 - 07:12AM JST Gamblings are not legal in Japan Umm - sure - people just play pachinko for "amusement only"!

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Gambling for cash is illegal in Japan.

Balls won cannot be exchanged directly for money in the parlor. The balls are exchanged for tokens or prizes, which are then taken outside and exchanged for cash at a place nominally separate from the parlor.

As long as pachinko parlors do not exchange balls with money inside, according to Japanese law, they are not violating Japanese law. But many people are suspicious that Kobuns of Pachinko parlor owners operate these exchange business. So, officials have been discussing how to handle pachinkos and pachinko parlors in Japan to prepare for Casino legalization. Late in 20th century, a former foreign minister complained good amount of pachinko house income are sent to N, Korea. in Japanese Diet sessions. Then later, AP reported that some Japanese big shots complained these money going to N, Korea becoming missile. There were more rumors on relationship between Pachinko parlors and N Korea when pachinko parlors appeared in Japan. It create worse addicts like this woman whose son died in the car. Japanese Govt has been discussing what to do with pachinko business for a quite while to prepare for Japanese GCB.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

They need to post educational signs in all these places to warn folks not to leave Kids in the Cars. Should not have to, however some people do not know better. So sad.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

FRAgain

I could not finish the article either.

This woman didn't forget her child. She knew her child was in the car. Yes you are right.

WP article also mentions (and I agree with what they say). "Sometimes, the parent knowingly left the child in the car, despite the obvious peril. In one particularly egregious instance, a mother used her locked car as an inexpensive substitute for day care. When hyperthermia deaths are treated as crimes, these are the ones that tend to result in prison sentences."

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Recently some cars in Japan are designed to be left locked with the engine and air-conditioning running inside. I have seen children playing inside people wagons while the parents are shopping. No idea if this was the case here or not, since the article does not go that far, but even so it would have run out of fuel.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

toshiko-

I usually live in Nevada USA. I don't know other states but in Nevada, it is illegal to have someone stays in a car without driver sitting in the drivers' seat/ So, I have to get out when I ride in my children;s car.

I believe you are mistaken. Nevada traffic law states that you can Never leave a child age 7 or younger unattended in a vehicle if the conditions present a significant risk to the health and safety of that child unless the child is being supervised by, and within sight of, a person at least 12 years old. (NRS 202.575)

NRS 202.575  Leaving child unattended in motor vehicle; penalty; exception.

1.  A parent, legal guardian or other person responsible for a child who is 7 years of age or younger shall not knowingly and intentionally leave that child in a motor vehicle if: (a) The conditions present a significant risk to the health and safety of the child; or (b) The engine of the motor vehicle is running or the keys to the vehicle are in the ignition,

Ê unless the child is being supervised by and within the sight of a person who is at least 12 years of age.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Back on topic please. Nevada is not relevant to this discussion.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Let me take a wild stab in the dark here: 40 year old woman, no other children, has been child free her whole life and suddenly has this little baby to deal with. The novelty wears off quickly and she cant be bothered with it anymore. Coupled with a Pachinko addiction. There is NO WAY she can not have known about the danger she was putting him in. It is incredibly well publicised, even for Japan.

This was either a deliberate act, or the woman is actually mentally incompetent.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

No idea if this was the case here or not, since the article does not go that far, but even so it would have run out of fuel.

According to Japanese sources, the engine of this car was not running.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@IN JAPAN, I think IN JAPAN has the BEST IDEA I have read here on JT!! I am going to contact my local Komei party leaders and ask them to think and hopefully push for a NEW LAW, making pachinko parlors RESPONSIBLE for any injuries and or deaths in their parking lots, because it is their STUPID CUSTOMERS who leave babies in their cars to die!! and what do these crummy North Korean owned PACHINKO parlors do?? Hope the babies are not of NORTH KOREAN decent and probably laugh, oh just another baby of the enemy! Maybe they do not go that far, but the JAPANESE GOVERNMENT should go farther in punishing these idiots! Not only the idiot parents who leave their children to die in their cars but the OWNERS of these crummy gambling halls aka PACHINKO parlors!

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Sadly, this happens every summer. You have to wonder how people can be so stupid. Poor kid.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

She is arrested. So, it is now in DA's hand to prosecute her.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

RIP little one, seems like we need a campaign to educate the masses. With a mascot, Common sense has left the building.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

what a nightmare for this family . The women knew her child was in the car, she was interested in her game and took no care of her baby .So stupid she did. RIP little guy.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

How about an announcement in the pachinko parlor about this subject or someone at the door or a big sign at the entrance of the pachinko parlor showing a child suffering in a car. Surely a child's life is more important than playing pachinko.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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