A 19-year-old youth who uploaded a series of prank videos on YouTube in January, including one in which he inserted a toothpick into a snack food in a supermarket, was sent to a moderate security juvenile correctional facility.
A judge at the Tokyo Family Court issued the ruling, saying that time in a correctional institution was an appropriate punishment, Fuji TV reported Thursday. He had been charged with forcible obstruction of a business.
The youth was placed on a nationwide wanted list after he inserted toothpicks and other foreign objects into snack foods in supermarkets, as well as engaging in shoplifting—acts which he had filmed and posted on YouTube.
He admitted committing the acts, saying his intention had been to “encourage revision of the juvenile act.” In one of his YouTube videos, he had boasted that because he was a minor, the police wouldn’t be able to do anything to him.
Police were able to identify the youth after examining a Jan 5 video shot at a convenience store in Musashino, Tokyo, in which he took a bottle of iced tea, drank from it and left the store without paying for it. Then on Jan 14, he posted a “Declaration of Evasion,” and subsequently posted additional provocative contents, declaring the police to be “incompetent.”
The case came to light after a video was uploaded to YouTube on Jan 11, in which someone is seen stabbing a toothpick into the package of a snack food at a supermarket in Chofu, Tokyo. The video began with the man’s voice saying “Are you all well? This is ‘prank at the supermarket’ round 2!” He then took a toothpick and walked up to a display filled with dry goods and snacks. He used the toothpick to pierce the top of one of the packages, pushed it in and then exited the store without purchasing anything.
That video received more than 500,000 views in three days.
Japan Today
Featured Image: YouTube