Police arrested a man who had barricaded himself with a firearm inside a post office near Tokyo on Tuesday, while at a nearby hospital, two people were injured following gunshots.
Two female postal workers were left inside the Warabi post office in Saitama Prefecture when the man, later identified as Tsuneo Suzuki, 86, began to hole up there from around 2:15 p.m. One of them was released unharmed, and the other managed to escape.
The police entered the post office about eight hours later and arrested Suzuki for allegedly violating a law on crimes associated with taking hostages.
They also seized an object that appeared to be a gun from the scene.
The area had been on high alert as gunshots were heard from the post office, where Suzuki was seen moving around inside. The police had urged nearby locals to evacuate.
The police are investigating the connection between the two incidents, which occurred an hour apart in the early afternoon.
In the first one at the Todachuo General Hospital in Toda, about 1.3 kilometers south of the post office in Warabi, a doctor in his 40s and a patient in his 60s suffered non-life-threatening injuries, according to the police. The two were apparently in an examination room on the ground floor at the time.
The hospital had informed the police that a man rode off on a motorbike, raising speculation that he was the same person who had barricaded himself in the post office.
Before the incident at the hospital, a fire was also reported at an apartment in Toda, Saitama Prefecture, where Suzuki is believed to have been residing.
