By Mie Sakamoto,
When Japanese police detained and took a man into protective custody one evening in 2007, the officers on the scene were not aware he had an intellectual disability, nor that their decision to forcibly restrain him would contribute to the young man's death.
Nearly two decades later, the case of Kenta Yasunaga, who had autism, and his tragic death in police custody is the topic of a new Japanese documentary film, titled "On the Way Home," which seeks to explore what happened on that fateful evening. It also documents the subsequent criminal and civil lawsuits fought by his family in their quest to find out the truth about what happened, in the hope they may prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.
Sometime around 6 p.m. on Sept. 25, 2007, the 25-year-old was riding his bicycle home from a workshop he had regularly attended in Saga Prefecture, southwestern Japan, when police officers attempted to stop him, thinking he had been acting suspiciously.
Since Kenta had communication difficulties owing to his disability, the sound of the police's loud siren caused him to panic. He fled on his bicycle, but crashed into a motorbike that had stopped for a red light and was thrown onto the road.
After Kenta stood up, five officers seized him as he fiercely resisted and moaned in distress. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and he soon fell unconscious. He later died at the hospital he was taken to.
Acute cardiac arrest was determined to be the cause of his death, but the documentary claims that injuries were discovered all over his body following the incident.
When first questioned by a police officer over what happened, his father, Takayuki, was asked whether his son had been drinking alcohol or taking illegal drugs. After Takayuki told the officer that his son was disabled, the officer appeared shocked, he says in the film.
It later turned out during criminal trials that none of the officers at the scene noticed that Kenta had a disability. Only one of the officers involved in the incident faced any charges, but he was acquitted. Rulings on criminal liability were finalized in 2012.
During damages lawsuits, Kenta's family said that the police officers' ignorance about people with intellectual disabilities led to the tragic outcome.
But the courts rejected this argument, supporting the police's claim that Kenta was in a state of "mental derangement," saying he could have been a danger to himself and others and was therefore in need of "protection" as stipulated by law. That ruling was finalized in 2016.
In an interview with Kyodo News, Tsuyoshi Fujioka, who helped produce the 30-minute documentary and partook in the civil lawsuits in support of the family with a group of fellow lawyers, said, "With our defeat at the Supreme Court, the legal settlement came in the form of a loss."
He added: "But the case has not been recognized or publicized in a way that will last in the memory of the general public."
Fujioka, who appears in the film, formed an association in 2017 that seeks to learn lessons from the incident and educate people about mental disabilities, with a special focus on police and judicial officials. The group then later approached Tomoki Imai, the film's director, about making the documentary.
The association is calling for a decades-old police law used to take Kenta into protective custody to be revised by getting rid of the term "mental derangement," which gives police officers the authority to label disabled people as such and detain them based on that assessment.
The group's call was backed by a United Nations panel that deals with the rights of disabled people. They expressed concern over "derogatory terminology" in Japanese law, including the term "mental derangement," and urged Japan to abolish such language in its recommendations last fall.
The suggestions were made after Japan was subject to a review for the first time since ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2014.
Producing the film was one attempt, says Fujioka, to achieve better public awareness and understanding of the need to revise the law, as doing so could change the powers granted to police officers in such cases nationwide.
"The film has had a major impact, earning over 10,000 views in a week" after its release on YouTube in December, said Fujioka, adding the group hopes many more people will watch the film and learn about what happened.
Fujioka, an expert on human rights issues in relation to people with disabilities, said many police officers are not educated or given training on how to deal with disabled people.
"Many are not aware that their duties include protecting citizens with disabilities," Fujioka said, recalling one incident in a case at the Fukuoka High Court where he asked an officer if he had ever considered whether someone under questioning might have mental disabilities.
"(The policeman) said they do not think about it at all, because they wouldn't be able to do their job properly if they always had to consider it," Fujioka said.
The film also reveals the disappointment and frustration felt by Kenta's father and his brother, Kota, after enduring years of attending legal proceedings in their quest for justice.
"In the end, I began to feel like I was being told during many of the trials that I shouldn't have let a disabled person out of the house," Takayuki said, adding that he felt accused of being ultimately responsible for his son's death because he was not accompanying Kenta at the time of his encounter with the police.
Kota says that discrimination against people with mental disabilities is a broader social problem, and also includes ordinary people who are not interested in educating themselves about societal issues surrounding them.
"I want people to learn about these things. Whenever I hear about other incidents like this that have occurred in other places, I feel as though my brother died for nothing," he says in the film.
Imai, the film's director, said he wants the documentary to shine a spotlight on issues surrounding people with disabilities and their welfare, including how the police, who disabled people and their relatives rely on for protection, cannot always be trusted, even though it is their job to look out for them.
He also seeks to show how discrimination and a lack of understanding about people with mental disabilities can have tragic consequences, he said, adding that the film made him reflect on his own past biases.
"It made me think about how I may have been guilty in the past of unconscious discrimination through a lack of awareness. For example, before, if I saw a person who was raising their voice in a strange way on a train or bus, I used to look at the situation and pretend I didn't know what was going on," he said.
Imai said he vividly recalls the soft expression on Takayuki's face when he spoke about his dead son's childhood, and how Kenta used to ring his bicycle's bell while returning home. His expression would turn to sadness and anger, however, when talking about the incident that led to his death.
Imai said he learned about people with mental disabilities after speaking with experts while conducting research for the film. He was taught how to deal with people with certain disabilities correctly.
"For me, that was really important and it made me notice everyday obstacles in society that people with disabilities have to deal with," such as when people walk into elevators in front of wheelchair users who need them.
Imai said he hopes to create a longer version of the film and explore the incident in greater detail.
There are currently four versions of the film, including one with Japanese subtitles and sign language.
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