Cops and Donut Joints
December 20th, 2009
Sachi and I had a quick dinner at a Mexican grill in town tonight, and something I saw there made me realize something about Japan. A uniformed cop came in, had a drink, and left. And it made me realize that you never see that in Japan: uniformed police officers never come in to eating places as customers. You don’t see them sitting at tables eating food. Even donut joints.
They’re rethinking it here… recently in a burb south of Tacoma 4 cops were sitting going over their plans for the shift and doing some paperwork, and a nutjob walked into the joint and wound up killing all four.
He took one of their guns and was shot dead by a Seattle cop about two days later. Mentally unbalanced, in trouble since his teens, typical story… except that he was given clemency by then-Governor Mike Huckabee.
They’re saying this might just be the nail in the coffin for any further political aspirations for Huckabee.
mmm Chipotle. It’s the main thing keeping me from moving back to Tokyo
The day they closed the Arby’s in Shibuya was a sad day indeed. Though in retrospect I was so incredibly lucky to be able to work 4 days a week in Shibuya in the early 90s. NCB wasn’t all bad