SUITA: A police officer who was attacked at a police box in western Japan in 2019 has expressed, in an interview with media outlets including Jiji Press, his desire to support crime victims using his experience.
Sunday marked five years of the attack.
“I want to help victims feel better, even if only slightly, because I understand their positions,” Suzunosuke Kose, 31, now having the rank of senior police officer, said in his first-ever interview with the press since the attack.
Kose was stabbed multiple times by a knife-wielding man in the left chest and both thighs in front of a police box in the city of Suita, Osaka Prefecture, where he worked, at around 5:40 a.m. on June 16, 2019. The attack left him unconscious and in a critical condition.
Kose, then in the rank of police officer, learned after regaining consciousness that a handgun had been taken from him, and decided to resign to take responsibility.
However, Kose’s mentors who saw him play rugby in high school and university urged him not to leave. This, along with urges by superiors and colleagues to stay and letters from across the nation praying for his recovery pushed Kose to remain an officer.
He worked hard on rehabilitation, despite having a part of his lung removed due to the stab to the chest puncturing his left lung and being unable to walk due to the stabs to his thighs. He was discharged from hospital about five months after the incident, and resumed duties in January 2020, at a division in the Suita police station.
He was put in charge of desk work for about three years due to concerns about aftereffects from the stabbing and his stamina, but he resumed duties outside of the station in April last year. Since October, Kose has been contributing significantly to combating special fraud.
The area under the Suita police station’s jurisdiction had the most cases of special fraud in Osaka for two consecutive years since 2022.
After the Suita city government decided to provide a subsidy for purchases of 1,000 telephone units equipped with fraud prevention features, the police station has been visiting residents to urge them to buy such phones.
Under the initiative, officers visit people who want to use the subsidies, those who have fallen victim to fraud and those whose names were in lists seized from fraud groups. Officers accompany those who accept to electronics stores to buy phones and help them apply for the subsidy.
Subsidy programs usually have not many users due to the complexity of the application procedures. But the police station’s efforts paid off, leading to applications for about 970 phones as of March this year. Of them, Kose was involved in applications for some 300 phones, the most at the police station.
“The content of the criminal incident is different, but I have experienced being in the position of a victim, so I understand victims’ feelings and positions,” Kose said. “I try to speak to people in a way that does not cause them further suffering.”
Kose, a native of Fukuoka Prefecture in southwestern Japan, initially pursued a career in law enforcement with a dream of becoming a detective.
“I want to use my experience to support people before and after becoming victims, as an officer in charge of crime prevention at (the police station’s) community safety division,” he said.
JIJI Press