A 61-year-old man used a kitchen knife to assault a girl playing on a street in the city of Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, on Thursday. Soon after the attack, police arrested Tatsuo Ono at a liquor store not far from the scene. Ono was drunk and made unintelligible comments to investigators, police said.
The girl sustained minor injuries to her left hand. According to police investigations, Ono approached the 8-year-old girl around 1:40 p.m. and asked her to show him her hand. When she did, he drew the knife and cut her palm. The second-grade girl, who was playing with two other girls at the time of the assault, told police that she knows the man.
On Wednesday, a 26-year-old woman assaulted three children with a knife and a hammer in the city of Ube in the same prefecture.