YouTube Child Chaser Commits Suicide

• Author: Artefact
• Categories: Japan, News
• Date: Mar 28, 2012 06:00 JST


• Tags: Bicycles, Bizarre, Cars, Crime, Himeji, Internet, Police, Schoolboys, Suicide, YouTube
  

A man who uploaded a video of himself chasing a schoolboy on a bicycle in his car whilst threatening to run him off the road to YouTube has committed suicide, despite police and the boy declining to press charges, prompting furious speculation as to why he would kill himself when he remained anonymous and faced no punishment.

The incident began in July of 2011, when a Himeji company employee in his forties apparently succumbed to road rage and began chasing a middle schooler on a bicycle, screaming various threats against the boy, including telling him he would ram him into the river.

He recorded the entire chase on his dashboard camera, and for reasons which are not clear decided it would be a good idea to upload the video onto Youtube:

He later deleted the video, but by then mirrors had proliferated and it was too late, and soon the police became involved.

The boy being chased was less than fazed by his ordeal, brushing off his pursuer as not worth bothering with – “I got through it fine. I’m not scared of some guy like that.”

He declined to press any charges against the man (with a complaint from his victim he could have been charged with misdemeanour intimidation or similar), and police had to settle for issuing him a verbal caution and making him sign a written pledge not to do it again.

The Internet, however, was much less forgiving – viewers of the video clamoured for his arrest and denounced him with much vitriol, outraged by his reckless and potentially murderous conduct. The media soon picked the story up as well.

All this was evidently too much for the schoolboy chaser – on the 27th, Tottori prefecture police reported discovering him dead, in what they are treating as a suicide.

There appears to be very little sympathy online, but there is a great deal of curiosity as to what actually transpired:

“This guy had no balls at all, did he?”

“He gets hit back and he kills himself…”

“This is the happiest news I’ve heard all year.”

“The kid didn’t even file a complaint. Why’d he kill himself?”

“He’s trying to get back at the kid.”

“He killed himself to atone. A happy end.”

“Did the kid even do anything to provoke this?”

“This is not going to leave a nice aftertaste for the kid.”

“You guys drove another one to suicide I see.”

“Nobody actually found out who he was and put it online, did they?”

“Nobody found out who he was. There should not have been any public impact on his life.”

“Scum has died, that is all.”

“He was probably up to all sorts of other dodgy stuff which would have ruined him if it got out.”

“If he had any real sensitivity he would never have uploaded that.”

“Apparently he went missing shortly after this blew up, after saying he didn’t think it would be this big of a deal.”

“Watch the video. Guys like that are a waste of oxygen.”

“The classic case of a dog whose bark was worse than his bite.”

“He probably had a mental illness of some sort.”

“A real ruffian wouldn’t have uploaded it like that. He was just a total coward in the end.”

“He had probably done other stuff which would have come out if anyone investigated.”

“Could have been his family which applied the pressure.”

“Was this really a suicide?”

“Why was he found in Tottori? With no complaint filed against him he basically got off scot-free.”

“He was probably unstable to start with. I’m more worried about the effect him killing himself will have on the schoolboy…”