Photo/Illutration Students leave school in groups after a stabbing incident on March 1 in Toda, Saitama Prefecture. (Emiko Arimoto)

TODA, Saitama Prefecture—A Japanese exam for second-year students at a junior high school here was interrupted by screams coming from outside the classroom.

“There’s a man with a knife!”

According to a girl in the class, a teacher who served as a proctor in the classroom went to the hallway to see what was going on.

He immediately returned to the room, locked the door and told the class, “Go on and do the exam,” the student told The Asahi Shimbun.

She said that children in the classroom could initially only grab snippets of information about the incident at Misasa Junior High School in Toda’s Bijogi area on March 1.

It was only later that the students learned the full story about the attack that left one teacher injured, including chilling details about the suspect.

A 17-year-old student at a correspondence course high school who lives in Saitama’s Urawa Ward was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

“I wanted to kill somebody, and it didn’t matter who,” investigative sources quoted the suspect as saying. “I have been interested in killing people.”

He also admitted to his involvement in the body parts of cats that were found in parks and elementary school grounds in Saitama city, just north of Toda, the sources said.

He said he was interested in abusing animals, they said.

Saitama prefectural police have interviewed his family.

According to police, the teenage intruder entered a third-floor classroom.

The classroom teacher, 60, and the teen got into a scuffle in the hallway, and the educator was slashed with a knife around 12:20 p.m.

The suspect was then overpowered by other teachers, who held him down until police arrived and arrested him.

The teacher’s injury was not life-threatening.

None of the children was harmed.

The female student who talked to The Asahi Shimbun was in a different class on the third floor when the attack occurred.

She said she could not understand what was going on but noticed many teachers gathered in the hallway.

Soon after, she saw first-year students running in the hallway. She later learned that these children were in the room where the knife-wielding teenager had entered.

She also heard teachers calling for an ambulance, which made her nervous.

All of her classmates listened attentively to the conversation among teachers in the hallway. The children pieced together that the veteran male teacher was wounded in the attack.

Some students started crying and trembling.

After the exam was over, she and her classmates had to remain in the room.

Thirty minutes after the incident, she was finally allowed to leave the classroom. Many police officers were at the classroom where the attack occurred.

Later in the day, all first-year and second-year students were summoned to a gymnasium where they listened to an explanation of what had happened.

The girl thought it was admirable that “teachers protected us with their bodies.”

She described the injured teacher as strict in class, but kind, funny and always willing to help students with career guidance.

“I hope he returns to work soon,” she said.

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