08/24/2007
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
A bar hostess who was shot dead by a police officer before he turned the gun on himself had complained to his colleagues that he was stalking her, but they didn't lift a finger to help.
Frantic, Yoko Sato, 32, also spilled her heart out to her parents and acquaintances while police refused to take her complaint seriously.
Sato's body was found in her tiny apartment in Tokyo's Kokubunji on Tuesday. Lying next to her with a gunshot wound to the chest was senior police officer Hidekazu Tomono, 40.
Sato told her parents in early June that she was being stalked by a police officer from the Tachikawa Police Station who at one point had "begged me for a kiss."
A woman who works at the same bar and a male acquaintance told The Asahi Shimbun that Sato had complained to Tomono's colleagues as well as police officers at the Kanagawa prefectural police headquarters.
However, none of them took any action, saying they belonged to different police divisions, according to Sato's accounts to them.
Officials of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said they have yet to confirm that Sato went to the police to seek help. They said they will investigate the matter to determine if police officers had acted improperly.
In May, Tomono visited Sato's male acquaintance at his workplace and asked questions about her. He also called the man's cellphone with more questions.
Tomono kept visiting the bar and insisted that she always serve him. Sato did not reciprocate Tomono's ardor.
One of her friends suggested to Sato that she quit her job so that she could escape Tomono's attentions and she told the bar manager that she would leave as of Aug. 15.
That night, Tomono turned up at the bar with four colleagues. Tomono stayed behind after they left.
"It looked like Tomono was going to spend some time with her," one of the police officials said.
Earlier this year, Tomono took Sato to another bar where he begged her for a kiss.
A person working at the bar recalled Sato saying that "(Tomono is) annoying, but he is a great customer because he spends tons of money."
Tomono, who was single and lived with his parents in Tokyo's Akiruno, started staying out at nights without saying where he was going.
He gave his parents 100,000 yen each month to cover his food expenses. But around April, he reduced the amount to 80,000 yen. In July and August, he borrowed a total of 1 million yen from his parents.
Meantime, investigators found that Tomono exchanged e-mail messages with Sato via their cellphones on Monday, the day before the pair were found dead.
They said Tomono's body was found some 13 hours after he left the Fujimidai Police Box for patrol duty on the night of Aug. 20. His colleagues started looking for him more than seven hours after he disappeared, but they couldn't reach him.
According to his colleagues, Tomono often pulled disappearing acts when he was on duty.
The MPD has concluded that staff oversight at the Tachikawa Police Station was lax. As a result, it began a special investigation of problems there on Wednesday.
On Monday, after receiving a report that a homeless man had been found asleep nearby, Tomono left the police box around 9:30 p.m. by motorbike.
He met up with the person who had reported the matter to the police station. After that, Tomono remained out of cellphone contact.
Around 10:30 p.m., the police supervisor turned up on his rounds but took no action after learning that Tomono could not be located.
Around 5 a.m. Tuesday, an officer at the police box informed the police station that Tomono was nowhere to be found.
Police officers and investigators were called to search for him. They identified Sato's apartment from her business card and went over there. They discovered the bodies around 10:40 a.m.
A suspicious person had been seen hanging around Sato's apartment. Police now believe it was Tomono.
Even while he was on duty, he apparently went over to Sato's apartment on numerous occasions even though it is located outside the jurisdiction of the Tachikawa Police Station.
The MPD is investigating the motive for Sato's slaying while trying to determine why it took so long for officers to begin searching for Tomono on the night he went missing.
(IHT/Asahi: August 24,2007)
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