A 23-year-old officer shot himself Sunday at a police box in Myoko, Niigata Prefecture, in an apparent suicide.
Colleagues found the officer bleeding from the head with a handgun at his feet in a locked bathroom at around 10:40 a.m. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The officer began work at 9 a.m. at the police box with two colleagues. The other officers heard a thud after he went upstairs and he was found shot in the right temple, the police said, adding that no suicide note was found.