By YOSHICHIKA YAMANAKA/ Staff Writer
April 22, 2022 at 18:17 JST
The Okinawa prefectural police building (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
NAHA--Okinawa prefectural police on April 21 said the DNA of a high school student who was seriously injured during a run-in with a police officer was discovered on a police baton.
The student’s eyeball was ruptured and he lost sight in that eye when he sustained the injury. Police have now concluded that his injury was caused by the police baton, according to sources.
According to police, it occurred when an officer of the Okinawa Police Station was put on alert after he received a call about a motorcycle running wild in the city of Okinawa at around 1 a.m. on Jan. 27.
The officer found a high school student riding a motorcycle and asked him to stop.
The officer initially said he tried to hold the student back with a police baton, but then the student ran away, sources said.
“I did not commit an act that intentionally hurt (the student),” the officer said, according to sources.
But the sources said the student told police a different story, that an “officer showed up out of nowhere and beat me with a baton.”
Police said the baton was fully extended when the officer held it.
Police are investigating into what part of the baton hit the student and if the officer’s act was intentional, based on experiments by experts.
Since the incident, posts on social media have charged that the student was beaten by a police officer with a baton.
The same day as the incident, a horde of youths gathered around the police station, upset over reports of police violence against a student, and threw rocks at the building, damaging the station’s electric signs and the glass on the entrance door.
Police have investigated the incident, seeking to the charge rioters with vandalism and unlawful entry.
Others have meanwhile posted claims on social media that the student was deliberately driving recklessly to attract attention.
But police said that claim is baseless and that they have not uncovered anything to suggest the student did not have a license or was driving a stolen vehicle.
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