A group of junior high school boys may have killed a 14-year-old schoolmate in Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture, last week in a suspected group attack because they disliked his attitude, investigative sources said Sunday.
Eight male students in their second year in the school — five aged 14 and three 13 — have been arrested or taken into custody on suspicion of a group attack resulting in the death Wednesday of Hoshito Yonemori, who was also in his second year.
Some of the students said Yonemori had "a brash attitude," and police suspect the eight students bore a grudge against him, the sources said.
They are suspected of summoning Yonemori to an open area after school Tuesday and attacking him, delivering fatal blows to his abdomen and back. One of the boys called an ambulance, Yonemori had fallen off a roof onto his back. Yonemori was taken to a hospital, where he died early Wednesday.
An autopsy found that his bruises were consistent with a beating.
The 14-year-olds were formally arrested and the 13-year-olds were taken into custody Friday. The minimum age at which legal criminal action can be taken against a person is 14.