Teen admits pushing man in front of train

OKAYAMA--Police are questioning an 18-year-old boy over the death of a stranger who was pushed in front of an approaching train at JR Okayama Station late Tuesday night.

Kuniaki Kariya was shoved from this platform in front of a train at JR Okayama Station on Tuesday. He died about five hours later.(MAMI UEDA/ THE ASAHI SHIMBUN)

Prefectural police suspect the teenager, from Daito, Osaka Prefecture, shoved Kuniaki Kariya, 38, from behind on the platform at 11:07 p.m. Tuesday.

Kariya, a prefectural government worker from Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, fell on the tracks of the Sanyo Line and was hit by a train bound for Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture.

Kariya died about five hours later of shock caused by blood loss.

"I thought that if I killed somebody, I could go to prison. It didn't matter who it was," police quoted the boy as saying. They added that the suspect did not appear to know Kariya.

Police initially arrested the boy on suspicion of attempted murder. They will seek murder charges now that Kariya has died.

Police quoted the boy as saying that he had gone to the station "hoping to stab someone."

Investigators found a kitchen knife with a 12-centimeter blade inside a shoulder bag the boy was carrying.

According to police, the boy left his home around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and arrived on a local train at Okayama Station around 7 p.m. They said he walked around the station for a while, but was unable to make up his mind on what to do.

He re-entered the station and approached a line of people waiting for the train. He then pushed Kariya, who was at the head of the line, from behind, police said.

The boy had been searching for a job since graduating from a prefectural high school in Osaka Prefecture on Feb. 29.

He lived with his parents, who reported the boy as a runaway after returning home Tuesday night to find that he was not there.

Police said they found about 3,500 yen in cash and a 140-yen ticket issued at Okayama Station among his possessions.

Kariya, who worked at the Okayama prefectural government's road construction division, was returning home from work. He was found underneath the connector between the first and second cars of the train. Police said Kariya was conscious when he was removed from the tracks, and that he told ambulance staff that his back hurt.

He apparently was not aware that he had been knocked off the platform, they said.

According to the Okayama branch of West Japan Railway Co., the driver of the train that hit Kariya said that about 50 meters before the train entered the station he noticed a person falling from the platform. The driver applied the emergency brakes, but the train could not stop in time.(IHT/Asahi: March 27,2008)