Negligence and lousy anti-stalking law behind Chiba kidnapping/murder

Hiroyuki Nakada, 28, who arrested on charges of abducting Tomomi Toyoda after killing her mother Aiko in Chiba, was supposed to be the 22-year-old woman’s “first love.” The courtship between the man and his victim began when they met on an Internet dating site in January this year, and the two moved into a Kanagawa apartment shortly after.

In late June, his physical abuse made Toyoda pack her belongings to seek refuge at her mother’s home. It was an act of betrayal that Nakada was unwilling to forgive. On July 4, Nakada dragged Toyoda out of her home and held her captive in his car, driving through Aichi for a week. Having run out of money, according to police investigators, Nakada demanded that she work at a convenience store in Toyota City. It was during the job interview that Toyoda seized the chance to plead for help, reporting that a man was threatening her with a knife.

Toyota police took the two into custody and confirmed that Nakada was indeed armed with a knife, but for some reason no charges were made. After swearing that he would stay away from his ex-girlfriend, captor and captive were returned to their respective families. In Chiba, Toyoda sought protection from the local police department while Nakada’s relentless stalking continued, culminating in the fatal stabbing of her mother Aiko. He took the woman captive again.

What explains the man’s obsession with his ex-girlfriend? According to an acquaintance, Nakada married in 1999 when he was 18. The couple had separated, then reconciled for a few years until the wife left him again due to domestic violence. Shortly after that, Toyoda met Nakada. The acquaintance says that when he saw the news, he immediately recognized the physical resemblance between Toyoda and Nakada’s estranged wife.

Also puzzling is the negligence on the part of Chiba prefectural police department, which was aware of the man’s violent tendencies. While Chiba Kita police say they provided Toyoda with an emergency carry alarm with GPS functions, Aichi police had virtually done nothing after the woman had asked to be rescued from the knife-wielding man.

Says Professor Emeritus Hiroshi Itakura of Nihon University Law School, “Strictly speaking, the police acted in accordance with anti-stalking laws. But in the majority of stalking cases, the most that the police can do is to issue a warning when the victim files a claim. It does not allow for stricter measures, even in clearly malicious cases. The police should have been able to take further action for kidnapping, obtrusion or assault when the suspect took the victim to Aichi, but it’s as though the anti-stalker law prevented the enforcement of other applicable laws.”

On the day of the murder/kidnapping, many neighbors living in the same apartment complex as the victims had heard the young woman scream for help. Although a number of these residents had witnessed Nakada forcibly dragging Toyoda to the car park, a distance of 150 meters, not a single one of them bothered to interfere. “I thought they were just fooling around,” “I was scared to get involved,” was the common response.

Neither the law nor witnesses were of any help to Tomomi Toyoda.

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Latest 15 of 16 Total Comments Show All

stirfry at 05:01 PM JST - 27th July

its made up as they go...simple
sharky1 at 07:05 PM JST - 27th July

How do they explain putting the girl on protective custody after they arrested her assailant???
TokyoGas at 08:07 PM JST - 27th July

Although a number of these residents had witnessed Nakada forcibly dragging Toyoda to the car park, a distance of 150 meters, not a single one of them bothered to interfere.

Shame on the people that just watched and did nothing.
cadmium at 08:38 PM JST - 27th July

If anybody had interfered with Nakada they might have been charged with assault. If that person was a foreigner, they might be deported. Good laws they have here. All you can do is call the police and let them handle it.
outofmydepth at 09:27 PM JST - 27th July

shame on the police, shame on the neighbors. shame shame shame.
pointofview at 10:08 PM JST - 27th July

Just stood around. Sounds familiar when you are talking about a bunch of cowards and weasels. And the police... Well is there a word that reaches further than ridiculous? Absolute stupidity.
timorborder at 10:13 PM JST - 27th July

What an absolute bxlls up this is.

Japan, a country where bureaucrats are all too willing to interpret the laws as they see fit (not as they are written). You read about it everyday, it is called policy formulation on the run.

However, in a case like this where a bit of ingenuity on the part of the cops would have saved a person's life, they decide to play things by the letter of the law. No consistency whatever. No wonder local folks have a poor opinion of the cops and their ability to "serve and protect".
fds at 11:27 AM JST - 28th July

the victim has to press charges in order for the police to act. obviously, she did not and the result was her mother's death.
borscht at 03:35 PM JST - 28th July

fds -

On July 4, Nakada dragged Toyoda out of her home and held her captive in his car, driving through Aichi for a week.

The victim has to press charges in order for the police to act? On kidnapping? How about murder? Are not the police supposed to arrest people doing illegal things? Or is kidnapping not a crime in Japan?
illsayit at 02:10 PM JST - 29th July

Chiba's police have a lack of respect for the family. They probably have too many foreign influence as it is near Narita, not that foreign is bad, but any bad, will come straight to Narita. This lack of respect for family, meaning a couple, within the community, like in this situation, where the ease of return to a parent, brings forth rage. Chiba will do the 'toughen up' routine, but I think it may have reached it's limit, like as this case. There is only so far that you can allow society, including the police to relieve tension through sexual gratification, without that having an effect.
gogogo at 03:47 PM JST - 29th July

Although a number of these residents had witnessed Nakada forcibly dragging Toyoda to the car park, a distance of 150 meters, not a single one of them bothered to interfere.

Nice one people, I hope you feel proud of yourself for doing nothing.
herefornow at 04:30 PM JST - 29th July

illsayit -- huh? What the heck does "foreign influence" due to proximity to Narita have to do with a J-guy killing a J-woman, and kidnapping another one? And, what does any of that have to do with police and sexual gratification?
Fadamor at 03:29 AM JST - 30th July

Borscht said:

The victim has to press charges in order for the police to act? On kidnapping? How about murder? Are not the police supposed to arrest people doing illegal things? Or is kidnapping not a crime in Japan?

She's the only one who can say she was kidnapped, not the police. If she says she doesn't want to press kidnapping charges, what are the police going to be able to do? Also, the murder happened after all that, during the second abduction. Get your timeline straight.
sakurasuki at 01:34 AM JST - 31st July

I think this is the real case where anti-stalking law should be enforced. Last year a judge in Yamanashi get arrested because sending lot of e-mails to a girl. For that case the only crime he committed is he doesn't know how to approach girl in a proper manner, poor guy he should hang out more when he was in school.
mnemosyne23 at 01:53 AM JST - 1st August

The first and foremost law that has to be re-evaluated is the ridiculous law that prevents bystanders from interfering when they see a potential crime in progress. Revocation or re-structuring of that particular law (or laws) would mean that good samaritans wouldn't be hamstrung by fear of unreasonable imprisonment. Would it have helped in this case? Who knows. I like to hope so, but if wishes were horses...

Next comes the issue of anti-stalking laws. Stalkers live in a strange kind of gray zone in the legal world, in that they aren't actively inflicting physical injury or property damage. As long as they don't violate a restraining order there's not much the police can do. And even if they DO violate a restraining order, be it in person, over the phone, or via email, the police response time isn't going to be fast enough to catch him or her. An email shot from a 'net cafe or a text sent from a cell phone -- they allow stalkers to continue to harass their victims without much fear of arrest. And if the physical boundary of a restraining order is breached, well... By the time anyone knows, the damage has usually already been done.

This is a problem anywhere stalking is recognized as a crime, and there is no easy answer. Where do the rights of a potential victim override the basic civil rights of the potential attacker? In this particular case, the man's violent history should have made it clear that he was unstable and probably should have warranted an arrest. The fact that he was allowed to continue harrassing this poor young woman is, in my mind, a gross failure of the criminal justice system. However many other cases of stalking happen everyday, and they aren't always as clearcut as this one.

I don't know how to fix the problem, but I would hope that people with more clout and more legislative experience than me are looking at these laws and trying to discern how to make them more effective.