JJapan

U.S. serviceman in Japan knocks into pedestrians, injuring four; avoids arrest. Court orders more than $103,000 in compensation, but he returned to the United States before the ruling was handed down.

  • April 26, 2025

U.S. serviceman in Japan knocks into pedestrians, injuring four; avoids arrest. Court orders more than $103,000 in compensation, but he returned to the United States before the ruling was handed down.

by maruhoi

22 comments

  1. > Shouts echoed through the ticket gates of the station. In footage obtained by JNN, a shirtless man can be seen surrounded by police officers.
    >
    > The man is a 31-year-old U.S. Navy petty officer second class assigned to Yokosuka Naval Base. In July 2022, on a street in Zushi City, Kanagawa Prefecture, he barreled into four pedestrians one after another, causing them serious and minor injuries before fleeing the scene.
    >
    > Victim (woman)
    > “I’ve never been hit by a car, but the impact felt about the same. Even now I believe it was an attempted random murder.”
    >
    > This woman, one of the victims, was shoved from behind and fell face-first to the ground, fracturing the orbital floor of her eye socket. She also broke bones in both hands and elsewhere, suffering injuries that required nine months to heal.
    >
    > Victim (same woman)
    > “If I’d struck the ground in a slightly different way, I might have died.”
    >
    > A male coworker who chased the sailor recalls:
    >
    > Man who pursued the sailor
    > “When I caught up, he started to take a swing at me. While I was down, he looked down at me as if he was about to attack again, then suddenly bolted. His pupils were dilated.”
    >
    > The sailor was finally apprehended on the station platform, but footage taken immediately afterward shows he was not handcuffed. He was not arrested.
    >
    > He went voluntarily to the police station for questioning but refused alcohol and drug tests, then took a taxi home.
    >
    > Under the Japan–U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, the handover of a suspect before indictment is left to U.S. military discretion. However, the victims’ attorney says the police still could have arrested him in the act.
    >
    > Attorney Masahiko Goto, representing the victims
    > “Once they knew he was a U.S. Navy serviceman, the police may have shown him some kind of special consideration.”
    >
    > The sailor was later indicted without detention on charges of bodily injury. Arguing that he had been “insane under the influence of alcohol,” he pleaded not guilty.
    >
    > In September last year he was sentenced to two years and four months in prison, suspended for four years; the verdict is now final.
    >
    > The woman continues to battle after-effects.
    >
    > Victim (woman)
    > “When someone hands me a glass, I think I’m holding it, but it slips because I have no strength. From my fingertips up my arm I feel an electric shock—numbness that can flare up many times a day without warning.”
    >
    > Today the Yokohama District Court delivered its ruling in the civil suit brought by the four victims against the sailor, ordering him to pay more than 16 million yen in compensation.
    >
    > Victim (woman)
    > “I’m grateful to everyone who supported me in so many ways. I could not have come this far on my own.”
    >
    > Yet just before the ruling, it emerged that the sailor had returned to the United States on reassignment. If he fails to pay, measures such as asset seizure will be difficult.
    >
    > Attorney Masahiko Goto
    > “We asked that he not be allowed to leave Japan until he had fulfilled his responsibilities, but that request was betrayed.”
    >
    > The victims are now pursuing procedures under the Status of Forces Agreement to seek compensation from the U.S. government.
    >
    > They say they have yet to receive any apology from the sailor.

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLSng64ANrA

  3. Google the Cermis/Cavalese cable car tragedy. Four Marines kill 20 people by flying their plane recklessly. Then they tamper with proof. No one was sentenced to any meaningful prison time.

    This is the reality of living in or around American overseas bases; allies…

  5. This seems to be regular occurrence, not only in Japan, but in EU too, I’ve heard multiple times how US servicemen are basically above the law, and even violent crimes are left unpublished. 

  8. US ambassador to UK did that too, and she’s still unpunished till this day. No wonder Americans are so narcissistic today, they are truly above the law.

  9. boot them out. Let them move their forces from yokosuka and yokota to guam or hawaii.

    You’re better off without them.

  10. The “insanity because intoxicated” line of defence is somehow admissible in court in Japan or USA? I know a bit of Italian law and if you’re intoxicated because of something you did (ex.: voluntarily drinking alcohol) you’re still responsible for what you do while drunk.

  11. I remember when an American woman killed a bloke by driving on the wrong side of the road, then ran back to the US and got away with it.

  12. Japan allowing American GIs to rape their women for so many years is actually crazy. Most of them get away with it too.

  13. I don’t know how it is now, but in the past I once taught English to one of the two lawyers working for the national government regarding prosecuting US servicemen. Yep, there is/was only two lawyers handling all crime related to them. (The lawyer was a really smart and funny person who seemed a bit despondent and powerless over the state of their department tbh)

  14. There are people like this then there is Vitaly rotting at the Philippines gulag

  15. Someone please enlighten me, because I will never understand why the Japanese goverment still allows the US having military bases there given the fact that every month we have a case of them either harassing, sexual assaulting or even killing civilians.

  16. If you replaced every single foreigner in Japan with a US serviceman, Japan would be a safer place

    US servicemen commit fewer crimes. Anything that should be done to them should be even more strictly done to us foreigners

  17. Last month:

    * [**No charges for Marine accused of car theft, home intrusion in Japan**](https://www.stripes.com/branches/marine_corps/2025-03-25/marine-japan-car-theft-intrusion-17253855.html)

    >*Japanese prosecutors have declined to charge a* [*U.S. Marine accused of stealing a car*](https://www.stripes.com/branches/marine_corps/2025-03-05/iwakuni-marine-corps-drunken-driving-17040117.html)*, driving drunk, crashing it, and intruding into a man’s home in Iwakuni last month, according to a spokesman for the Yamaguchi District Public Prosecutors Office.*

    >*The office decided Monday to drop its case against the Marine assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, the spokesman said by phone Tuesday. He declined to explain the decision. Yamaguchi Prefectural Police identified the Marine as a 21-year-old corporal.*

    >*Prosecutors, not police, decide formal charges under Japan’s justice system.*

    >*The Marine remains under U.S. military investigation and could face “disciplinary and administrative actions” depending on the outcome, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing spokesman Maj. Joseph Butterfield wrote in an email Tuesday.*

  18. And shock Trump won’t extridite them…. Anne Sacoolas… Issac Calderon… UK has same issues, maybe it’s time to review US military agreements for their personal stationed in our countries and remove them

  21. At least every OECD nation knows thanks to trump now. The US is NOT an ally. They are enemies like china and russia

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