gunman opened fire at a sports club

[centrajapan]

SASEBO, Nagasaki — At least one person died and several others were injured after a gunman opened fire at a sports club here Friday, police and other sources said.

An emergency phone call was received from the Renaissance Sasebo sports club in the city at 7:13 p.m. Friday, reporting a noise like an explosion. A subsequent report said it appeared that a rifle had been fired.

When officials arrived at the scene, they found a woman collapsed at the scene. She was taken to a hospital but was confirmed dead. The woman was subsequently identified as Mai Kuramoto, 26, a worker at the club. Reports said she had died almost instantly after being shot.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071214p2a00m0na030000c.html

It is too early to say anything yet but Sasebo being home of an US base. There are chances that the murderer was an American officer.

The United States agreed Wednesday to let Japan pare its burden-sharing costs to maintain U.S. military facilities in the country over three years starting from April, after the current two-year accord expires in March.

The cuts will amount to ¥400 million in both fiscal 2009 and 2010, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said. The reductions will not affect host-nation support in fiscal 2008, which begins next April.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20071213a1.html

Whether or not the killer was American this will have little effect on the US presence in Japan as a whole by the looks of things.

[Dutch Baka]

Moved this thread, because it's not sure if it's someone from the air-base.

I also saw on the news that the gunman committed suicide, I did not find any English news item about it though.

[doinkies]

It seems the gunman was a Japanese person named Magome Masayoshi. There was some speculation from some news outlets that the suspect could have been a foreigner based on the person's height and that there's an air base, but this was before he was identified. (He was wearing a mask.)

[Mars Man]

On the news this morning, Japan time, the suspect seems to have been fully indentified, and seems to have worked at that location, or to have had some connection to it. The weapon may have been for hunting--which is, of course, allowed here.

I would suggest, centrajapan san, that you at least hold your bias a little more in check; it is by such means that invalid rumors create problems themselves. If a matter is not sure of yet, present most clearly as being unknown without offering pure speculation.

[Dutch Baka]

My wife told me that the neighbors had been complaining about his strange behavior and his weapon possession.