Air Conditioners Being Stolen in Tsukuba
External air conditioning units are being stolen in Tsukuba. Units that are not visible from the road are especially vulnerable to theft. If your air conditioner gets stolen, please report it to the police. If you buy another unit, be sure to protect it with anti-theft equipment.
Source: September 1, 2007 Issue of Tsukuba City Hall Newsletter
Print This Post
Ask for Identification from Police Officers
If you are approached by a police officer, insist on seeing photo identification.
At around 6:30pm on February 26, a man claiming to be a police officer approached a 19 year-old university student in the Amakubo area of Tsukuba and told her that she was riding a stolen bicycle. He showed her a business card that included his name and a police symbol and told her that she would have to come with him in his vehicle. He then put her in the back seat of his van.
He drove for about 13 km to a convenience store in the Numata area of Tsukuba and entered the store. While he was in the store, the student called her father. He told her to go somewhere where there were other people around, so she went inside the store and asked the man if he was really a police officer. When she asked him that, he got back in the car and drove away. The woman was not injured.
The suspect in this case is around 40 years old, about 170cm tall, average build, and short black hair. He was wearing a beige down jacket and black or blue trousers. He was driving a grey van. Call 110 if you have any information about this case.
A similar incident occurred in the late evening on the 25. A different woman was approached by a man who claimed to be a police officer in the Sakura area of Tsukuba.
Source: Yomiuri Shinbun and the Ibaraki Prefectural Police Hibari-kun Crime Prevention Mailing List (ひばりくん防犯メール).
Print This Post
Be Aware of Hunters!
Yes, I said hunters. The hunting season in Ibaraki and all the other prefectures besides Hokkaido began on November 15. You might be surprised to know that quite a lot of areas in southern Ibaraki are in the hunting zones. Did you know that a young man who was hiking alone on the mountain trail in the beautiful Okutama in Tokyo was accidentally shot by a hunter on November 25? The hunter shot this poor guy in the arm because he saw "bushes move" and thought it was a wild boar. The injury this hiker suffered was not life threatening but will take 3 weeks to recover.
This is the season a lot of people go to mountains or remote areas for hiking or for “秋の味覚” (aki-no mikaku, or autumn flavors), so the chances of ordinary people encountering hunters are high. Furthermore, according to the announcement made by Tsukuba Chuo Police Station on ACCS TV, Tsukuba’s cable TV company, there are some hunters who hunt (or more like end up hunting) in the non-hunting zones. A lot of hunters are coming to southern Ibaraki area from Tokyo and other surrounding prefectures, so it could just be that some of them are not familiar with the locale (or they are just selfish and irresponsible!). The Ibaraki Police are patrolling from the ground and the sky looking for those hunters who don’t follow the guidelines, but do call the police or the city and inquire about the hunter(s)/hunting zone if you happen to see a hunter(s) or happen to hear gunshots and are concerned. Apparently, the number of phone calls police stations receive from concerned citizens in southern Ibaraki are on the increase. The hunting/non-hunting zones change every year, and it looks like that the speed of re-evaluating non-hunting zones is not catching up with the speed of rapid residential area growth in Tsukuba and rest of southern Ibaraki.
So how do you find out if you are living anywhere near the hunting zones? I called the Tsukuba Chuo Police Station about this, and I was told that you can visit any 駐在所(chuuzaisho, or police substation) or Tsukuba Chuo Police Station to take a look at the map of this year’s hunting/non-hunting zones. The map is in Japanese, but the each zone is colored in different color and comes with the English explanation such as “wildlife preservation zone.” The map is generally called ハンターマップ(hunter map), so for instance, you can visit a nearby police station and say “ハンターマップを見たいのですが…(hunter map wo mitai no desuga…/I’d like see the hunter map).” If you are not sure if the koban you visit has the map or not, you can say “ハンターマップは置いてありますか？(hunter map ha oite arimasuka?/ Is there a hunter map (at this koban/police station)?)
The Ibaraki Prefecture’s Southern Ibaraki Office distributes the maps to area police stations every year, and the police stations in Tsukuba don’t have any extras to sell or give out. Southern Ibaraki Office is located in Tsuchiura, but you will have to visit the 行政情報センター(gyousei jouhou center, or government information center) on the third floor of Ibaraki Prefectural Government Building, a.k.a. kenchou) in Mito City if you want to get your own copy. The Southern Ibaraki Office only provides the map to the licensed hunters who register there. The map is 290yen, and you can purchase it by mail order if you don’t have the time to go to Mito. However, it may take a while for you to receive the map since you’ll have to mail the payment (plus postage) via registered mail and the Gyousei Jouhou Center has to “process” it which could take some time. Gyousei Jouhou Center is only open on weekdays, so it looks like the easiest way for us to check the hunting zones in our area is to visit a nearby police station after all.
Hunting season in Ibaraki and most of other prefectures ends on February 15 every year. Some prefectures with extensive bird or animal damages extend the end of the hunting season, for instance, to March or April.
Print This Post
Beware: Earthquake Early Warning System Scam
The Japan Meteorological Agency introduced an "Earthquake Early Warning System" (kinkyuu jishin sokuhou, 緊急地震速報) in 2007. The early warning will only give you a few seconds' notice that an earthquake is about to happen, but that could be enough time to get yourself to a safe place.
Recently, a few people have fallen victim to a scam involving the Earthquake Early Warning System. There are basically three patterns to this scam:
1. The scammer will go to an apartment building and ask one of the residents to open the door to the building because he is from the Meteorological Agency and he has come to install equipment for the Earthquake Early Warning System.
2. The scammer will claim to be doing a survey about the Earthquake Early Warning System and get people to divulge their personal information (name, address, etc.).
3. The scammer will tell people that he is selling equipment for the Earthquake Warning System on behalf of the local disaster response center (or the manager of the building) and that the residents are required to have it installed so they have to buy it.
The Meteorological Agency will not send anyone to your door regarding the Earthquake Early Warning System, and you are not obliged to buy any equipment or complete any surveys about this system. Please do not fall victim to this scam.
For more information about the Earthquake Early Warning System, please see this TsukuBlog article.
Print This Post
Car Owners, Be on Alert!
According to the Skylark Crime Prevention E-mail I received yesterday, seven Toyota Hi-Aces have been stolen in southern and western Ibaraki areas just this month! The police suspect that Hi-Ace and similar-typed cars will more than likely be targeted again, and they are warning the car owners to be on alert.
To see what Toyota HIACE looks like, click here
Related post:
Receive Area Crime Reports on Your Computer or Cellphone
Print This Post