Armed Man at Saitama Pref. Post Office Arrested: 2 Women Inside Safe (Update 2)

The Yomiuri Shimbun

23:06 JST, October 31, 2023

An armed man who barricaded himself in a post office in Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, was arrested at around 10:20 p.m. Tuesday.

Two female workers of the post office were initially left inside the building when the man stormed in shortly after 2 p.m., but a woman in her 20s walked out of the post office at 7:17 p.m., and another woman in her 30s at 9:04 p.m. Both women were unharmed.

The Saitama prefectural police sent officers in the post office at 10:20 p.m. who arrested the man, 86, and confiscated what may have been a gun from him.

About an hour before the post office incident, a man fired a gun at a hospital in Toda, Saitama Prefecture, located 1.5 kilometers south of the post office, and fled the scene with a motorcycle.

A doctor in his 40s and a patient in his 60s sustained head injuries that are not life-threatening.

The police believe the gun man at the hospital is the same man who barricaded himself at the post office, based on information from witnesses.