Crime-prevention authority Yukiko Saeki, suggesting ways to avoid being attacked by random assailants in public places. (Jitsuwa Knuckles)

7 Comments

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  LFRAgain at 08:37 AM JST - 4th June

  Good advice from start to finish.

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  Coligny at 09:02 AM JST - 4th June

  Yeah, fear and paranoia... just what everybody needs...

  Want a good way to avoid random attack on public places ? crowd support and response instead of the usual attitude of looking somewhere else as long as you are not the one bleeding.

  I spent 20 minutes on the floor under my bicycle after being cowardly attacked by... hum... a streetlight... before somebody even looked at me. No wonder why every wacko on the block feels that he can attack anybody without any risks when even city furnitures start to play hard without fear.

  (also, putting streetlights in the center of the sidewalk is not what I consider good planning...)

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  Altria at 10:29 AM JST - 4th June

  Even better, stay at home and lock all windows and doors!

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  LFRAgain at 11:05 AM JST - 4th June

  fear and paranoia...

  Not really. It's just common sense to be aware of your surroundings, not just to avoid a potential attack, however small the risk, but to avoid things like, well, streetlights in the middle of sidewalks.

  Walking along blissfully unaware of your surroundings, particularly with headphones blaring at full volume, can lead to a wide variety of preventable accidents, from getting clipped from behind by an ambulance, to getting knocked down by someone in a hurry. People in the cellphone texting fog are especially dangerous, to themselves and to those around them. Put this kind of person on a bike and pedestrians beware.

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  borscht at 03:50 PM JST - 4th June

  Even at the best of times, Japanese tourists in other countries are not particularly aware of their surroundings caught up as they are with their maps and gawking at the sites. (Perhaps all tourists). Put a text-messaging, iPod wearing self-centered human in the middle of a busy intersection or near a wacko with a knife and, well, be prepared to hear about it on the waido shows.

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  LFRAgain at 04:54 PM JST - 4th June

  Anyone remember the story from a couple of years ago about the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem? Palestinian militants inside, a ring of Israeli tanks and troops outside, bullets flying, snipers on the rooftops. And into the fray comes wandering . . .

  . . . A Japanese couple backpacking through the Middle-east.

  Out of touch with any sort of media for six months and completely oblivious to the warzone around them. The Palestinians inside the church and the Israeli troops stopped firing at each other out of sheer stupification. It took media people covering the siege to drag the two tourists to safety after they failed to understand the Palestinians and Israelis yelling, "Get the hell out of here! This is a warzone!"

  Sure, an extreme example, but a cautionary tale about paying attention to where you are and what's happening around you.

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  usaexpat at 11:15 PM JST - 4th June

  Sounds like common sense to me. I see too many people blasting their Ipods while walking around in a trance. Criminals of all stripes tend to pick the "spacers" out of a crowd.

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