Going Postal, Mazda Style: Rampage Leaves 1 Dead, 10 Injured

by Bertel Schmitt

June 22nd, 2010 4:09 AM

going postal mazda style rampage leaves 1 dead 10 injured

42-year-old Toshiaki Hikiji, who says he was fired by Mazda as a temporary worker, allegedly hit 11 Mazda employees with a Mazda Familia at Mazda’s plant in Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima Police says he managed to kill one.

According to The Nikkei [sub], Hikiji was waiting in the car at the Ujina plant as workers were beginning to arrive for the morning shift.

After hitting the workers, the man fled. Later, he called the police from his hideout. The found him at a mountain in the town of Fuchu in Hiroshima Prefecture and arrested him. According to the Nikkei, the man, who also was carrying a knife at the time of the arrest, told the police that he was fired by Mazda in April and had a ”grudge” against the company.

The Washington Post cites Mazda spokesman Kotaro Minagawa, who said that the man wasn’t fired. He had quit in April on his own, after working just eight days at the plant. There had been no reports of troubles.

Out of the 11 attacked workers, one died. Another one is in critical condition. The nine others sustained injuries.

While not entirely unheard of, cases of premeditated road rage are very rare in Japan.

#BertelSchmitt #Japan #Mazda #Rage #Rampage

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3 comments

Mikey on Jun 22, 2010

I can think of lots of witty comments, but out respect for the dead fellow, I won't. Assembly line work is harder on the mind,than it is on the body. But this guy only worked eight days,so he might of been a little unstable before he was hired. In the 36 years I spent on the floor I can think of about five guys,that truly frightened me. We used to joke"if that guy shows up carrying a long case, run like f---? I remember another guy who would memorize the make, model,colour and licence plate numbers of the girls cars. A group of us would walk the girls to their car on night shift. The perv didn't have the balls to come up to us as a group, But he made it real clear that he would get even. I worked a desk job on a GM recieving/shipping dock. I could, and did wear golf shirts or neatly pressed cotton shirts. This loony trucker came in one day,and assuming I was management proceded to flip out.At the top of his lungs he screamed "GM was sqweezing his company out of buisness,and he wasn't gonn'a take it anymore" "We had no right,to make him wait for hour while we unloaded him" As soon as he started ranting about his 10 year old Bonneville being a POS, I knew we had a "nut bar". One of the lift truck drivers called security on my radio,they come and escorted him out.My boss showed, up as did his boss,and the shift manager. They took the name of the trucking firm,and I'm sure,the guy got fired. For months we were all worried. "That f---ker is gonn'a come in here with a gun and dust us all" We never heard from him again,but it still scared the s--t out of me.

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- Len_A on Jun 22, 2010
  
  As a vendor sales rep, been there, done that. I was making a small, but heavy, delivery of some anti skid floor coating, basically oil based paint with coarse sand in it, to the GM Warren Tech Center. It was four very heavy twenty-five gallon pails, and four skilled trades workers were sent down from the maintenance department, to help me unload them from my car's trunk. This was back in the day when I wore a suit, a period of time I call BBC - Before Business Casual. A trucker who just backed his rig into one of the loading dock saw these guys helping me, and goes into a tirade, screaming that he was told the rules required him to unload his f***ing trailer, and some scumbag college puke (had he been talking with ex-girlfriend? Whatever...) wasn't going to be getting "a team" to take some "sh*t" out of his "f***ing POS company car's trunk". I told him it wasn't a company car & I don't drive a POS. I should have kept my mouth shut, seeing as he got as red as a stop sign, and I swear had steaming coming out of his head. Mikey, who ever your peer was called security, security got into it with him, and one of the guys helping say "When we're done, be very, very far away, or this jack*ss might run over you and your car with his rig". Last I heard that week, they had to call the cops on this guy. I didn't stop shaking for a couple of days.
  
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Friedclams on Jun 22, 2010

This is sad. As someone who has worn blue and white collars, I think that there are unstable people in all parts of the workforce. Mikey, maybe the feeling of stress and being alone on the job exacerbates the situation for assembly line workers (and truckers)?

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