Shinzo Abe steps up to speak to the crowd at an LDP rally ahead of the Upper House election on Sunday. His attacker, Tetsuya Yamagami (second from right), stands at a distance behind him. | KYODO
The initial news, arriving piecemeal, was confusing, almost too shocking to believe: Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — Japan’s longest-running leader — had fallen. Blood was seen on his chest. Gunfire had been heard.
Had the influential lawmaker actually been shot while stumping for a fellow LDP member? How did the shooter acquire a gun in a country that has such strict controls on firearms?
As doctors attended to Abe at a Nara hospital, administering a blood transfusion, details about the assailant trickled in, but the public was still struggling to make sense of the emerging photos and videos, the reports and the rumors.
Just after 5 o’clock, the news was officially announced: Shinzo Abe had died, at age 67, from wounds to his back, neck and heart.
Here are a few moments from a sad and surreal day that few in Japan are likely forget.
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lies on the ground after being shot in the city of Nara on Friday. | KYODOThe site where Shinzo Abe was shot from behind by a man wielding a modified gun. | KYODOInvestigators in protective gear walk toward the home of the shooter, Tetsuya Yamagami. | KYODOShinzo Abe, not long after he was shot while campaigning for the LDP, is transported by medical helicopter to a nearby hospital. | KYODOPassersby in Shinjuku, Tokyo, view news of the shooting of Shinzo Abe on Friday. | BLOOMBERGA large video screen shows news broadcast featuring an image of Abe in Beijing on Friday. | AFP-JIJIA special edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reporting Abe’s death is distributed in Tokyo. | REUTERSPedestrians in Tokyo watch a news broadcast about the assassination of Abe on Friday. | BLOOMBERGArtists display a memorial painting of Abe, outside an art school in Mumbai on Friday. | REUTERSA woman prays at the site were Abe was shot while campaigning for the upcoming upper house election. | REUTERSA poster of Shinzo Abe in his electoral district, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture. | KYODOPrime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks to the media Friday evening, following the death of Shinzo Abe. | KYODOA man prays on Friday evening near Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara where Abe was shot earlier in the day. | AFP-JIJI
