Man arrested for murder threat at non-existent train station

In Tokyo, a foolish man thought he could make a mass-murder threat with impunity by announcing he'd do it at a train station that doesn't exist. Much to his surprise, he was arrested anyway.

"I'll show you how to avoid being arrested after threatening to launch an attack," the message read. "At 9 p.m. today, I'll murder many people at Ueno Station on the Saikyo Line."
As the JR Saikyo Line does not go through Ueno, police officers were on alert at other platforms at Ueno Station.

Murder threat at non-existent train station (Mainichi Daily News) (via Japan Probe)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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skarbreeze

@ #3. I’d be willing to bet they’d pick you up just for the heck of meeting you. With a wet cloth. On your face. Upside down…
zuzu

I’d be willing to bet they’d pick you up just for the heck of meeting you. With a wet cloth. On your face. Upside down…

That’s fine, just so long as they don’t torture you. Oh, wait…
Casual_Casualty

Agreed #2… Although I don’t see it as completely improbable that you could be arrested and required to undergo a psychiatric evaluation for calling in a statement like: “I am going to bomb the Gulliver Platform of Utopia Station in Suffragette City.”

Here’s hoping no one is taking anything out of context…
strider_mt2k

Pretty stupid way to test the system.
mikelotus

Would it be a problem that one is going to murder everyone in Shagra La? or a bomb in Oz?
Anonymous

This seems a bit misleading. The train station exists. That platform however doesn’t exist.

It would be analogous to threating the Red Line platform at Lexington station in NYC. There isn’t a red line there, but the police would still need to take it seriously.

If he’d said the Habachi station, it might be taken as a joke.

I’m all for free speech.. but it’s well established that making open threats will be taken seriously.
Rob Beschizza

I like how he was arrested for “obstruction of business.”
angusm

I wonder if the Secret Service would intervene if you started threatening to kill President Lincoln at the Ford Theater.