Taxi driver dies after assault by passenger (Credit : tokyoreporter)

Taxi Drivers in Japan were beaten by his passengers to death

Police arrested A 59-year-old deliveryman for the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, after he was found beating up a taxi driver in Tomakomai city, Japan. According to information from The Tokyo Reporter, the poor taxi driver named Susumu Sato was later known to have died due to the act of his last passenger.

Masatsugu Watanabe, a part-time worker at the sales office, took a taxi driven by Susumu Sato at 11:10 a.m. However, after getting off the taxi he didn’t pay the fare of around 1000 yen. He instead escaped from the taxi. Sato who was annoyed, chasing Watanabe as far as 30 meters from the vehicle. Watanabe who was caught by Sato then punched the driver’s face and then run again. After that, Sato reported this attack to the police.

An officer from the Tomakomai Police Station arrived at the scene at 11:30 a.m. Arriving there, he found Sato unconscious. Two hours later he was confirmed dead at the hospital. The police said that based on the results of the autopsy, he died of congestive heart failure.

The police then managed to arrest Watanabe. To the police, he claimed that he did not want to pay the taxi fare because Sato didn’t t drop him right in front of his house. Watanabe was also indicted for the theft. But the police are still carrying out further investigations to find out whether or not the suspect can be charged with the murder.

Knowing that one of their workers had committed a crime, the Hokkaido Shimbun had sent their condolences to Sato. The Hokkaido Shimbun promised to give stricter instructions to their workers and agreed to cooperate with the police in investigating this case.