Four men in their 20s were arrested Wednesday for allegedly overturning a small truck during a Halloween event in late October in the busy Shibuya district of Tokyo, police said.
No one was injured in the incident that occurred in the early hours of Oct. 28, but it was one of a series of escalating pranks at the increasingly popular Halloween event in Shibuya.
The four -- Yuta Kuroki, 27, Takaaki Kawamura, 22, Shota Kojihara, 20, and Rikuo Kokubun, 20, -- have admitted to the charge of property destruction. They told the police that they did not know each other prior to the incident.
[Photo courtesy of Yu Yuki, head of Yu mental clinic]
"I got too excited," Kokubun was quoted by the police as saying. Kawamura told the police he did it "in the heat of the moment after drinking."
The police believe a total of 15 people, including French and Belgian nationals, were involved in overturning the truck. They said the four arrested were particularly culpable as they were seen standing on the vehicle and damaging it.
The police plan to refer to prosecutors the remaining 11 people.
At around 1 a.m. on Oct. 28, the four men allegedly flipped the truck as crowds in costumes gathered near JR Shibuya Station in central Tokyo. The driver had left the vehicle to alert police.
The men were identified using footage from about 250 security cameras and images captured by people nearby, the police said.
Concern is growing over the raucousness of the Halloween street party that is joined by many people clad in costumes, along with the massive amount of litter that is left after the event.
Among the over 300,000 visitors, a total of 19 people were arrested between the night of Oct. 27 and the morning of Nov. 1 for alleged groping and theft, according to the Shibuya police station.
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