National News

17-year-old kills teacher

OSAKA (Kyodo) - A knife-wielding 17-year-old youth intruded Feb. 14 into an elementary school in Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture, stabbed a male teacher to death and seriously wounded two female staff members with a sashimi knife.

Parents of students at Neyagawa Chuo Elementary School wait anxiously Feb. 14 to pick up their children after a teenager went on a stabbing spree.

No students witnessed the attack, which took place at Neyagawa Chuo Elementary School at around 3:10 p.m.

Police say the youth was acting on a grudge against another teacher, who was not among the casualties of the attack. The youth claimed that the teacher had failed to help him when he was bullied as a pupil there.

The teacher, who still works at the school, has told police that he has no idea why the teen harbors ill feelings toward him.

The youth had been undergoing counseling for people who had been absent from school for extended periods, and will undergo a summary psychiatric test, police said.

Shukan ST: Feb. 25, 2005

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