NEWS: Japan
A doctor dies in Fujimino after an extremely violent gun attack.

A well-known doc­tor, Junichi Suzu­ki, 44, was shot and held hostage, police said. He lat­er died in hospital.

Crimes com­mit­ted with a firearm of this sever­i­ty are rare in Japan where firearms are heav­i­ly regulated.

It is unclear what led to the vio­lence or how the sus­pect had a firearm, report­ed as a hunt­ing weapon by some media out­lets. The police have launched an investigation.

How Japan almost erad­i­cat­ed gun crime
Japan­ese media report­ed that the med­ical team attend­ed to the sus­pec­t’s moth­er, who died recently.

The group had paid a com­pas­sion­ate vis­it to the man’s home on Thurs­day evening at his request, the Japan Times reported.

Police were first alert­ed around 9:00 p.m. local time (1200 GMT) after neigh­bors report­ed gun­shots and found a man bleed­ing from chest and stom­ach wounds out­side the house.

The 41-year-old male nurse was tak­en to hos­pi­tal where he remains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, police said.

Anoth­er man, 32, had man­aged to flee the house to a police sta­tion, media reported.

Police advanced on the house that night, accord­ing to reports.

Police in riot pro­tec­tion rushed to cov­er the house dur­ing the hostage crisis.

The 11 a.m. siege took place in a town just north of Tokyo.
Offi­cers spoke with the shoot­er through­out the night by phone, but he made no inquiries or requests, local media reported.

On Fri­day morn­ing, while the siege was still ongo­ing, author­i­ties evac­u­at­ed about 110 res­i­dents from the neigh­bor­hood and closed near­by schools.

Police stormed the house soon after, where they found Mr. Suzu­ki and arrest­ed the suspect.