Honestly don't know if I've ever seen someone tweet a photo of an armed robbery in progress. Well, I have now.
The tweet read, "There's a robber now at Kurumaya Ramen," tweeted @0503Daiki. The photo, which has now been retweeted over six thousand times, shows a man in a white t-shirt, brandishing a knife at the register.
Initially, other Twitter users wondered if the photo was for real. "Yes, I'm serious!" @0503Daiki replied. "You can see the butcher knife, right?" Others incorrectly thought that @0503Daiki was tweeting a photo of himself committing a robbery (instead of photographing the alleged perp).
Yes, Twitter has now reached critical mass and is at the point where people are live-tweeting crimes. That's certainly easier (and safer) than trying to stop them! And @0503Daiki wasn't the only Twitter user in the restaurant. Among the twenty or so customers in the same Kurumaya Ramen in Narita, outside Tokyo, another Twitter user @LDHxxxMxHxxx was tweeting about the in-progress crime.
The man, 41 year-old Shouichi Ishii, entered the restaurant, @LDHxxxMxHxxx tweeted, and allegedly told the restaurant staff to empty the register, allegedly stealing 250,000 yen (US$2,569). Customers as well as shop staff alerted the police, J-Cast reports. And according to Yomiuri, when the police arrived, Ishii was sitting in the parking lot, where he was arrested.
According to @LDHxxxMxHxxx, thankfully, no one, including restaurant staff, was hurt in the robbery. Below is a photo @LDHxxxMxHxxx took of the police cars in front of the restaurant:
くるま屋ラーメンに強盗なう [Twitter]
ラーメン店で強盗後、店の駐車場に座っていた男 [Yomiuri]
To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.