Officer protects citizens without the use of deadly force.

One of the great things about life in Japan is the incredibly low crime rate. The price of the public peace isn’t a trigger-happy police force, either. Yes, cops in Japan do carry firearms, but it’s rare for them to actually discharge them in the line of duty.

The latest example of a Japanese police officer dealing with a situation without using deadly force comes from Nagoya, where a group of citizens was being approached by a potentially violent individual in a threatening manner. The officer on the scene didn’t need to fire a single shot and succeeded in talking the would-be assailant into backing down…even though he was talking to a wild boar.

At around 2:40 on Sunday afternoon, a pair of boars were spotted in Nagoya’s Moriyama Ward, in a riverside area near homes which is usually devoid of such large wildlife. Officers were dispatched to the area to warn residents and keep an eye out for the animals, and two hours later the boars appeared again, near the bank of the Yada River. One of the boars, about one meter (3.3 feet) in length, began making motions to charge at a group of about 10 people, but between them stood the 36-year-old police officer seen in the video above.

The officer, a sergeant with the Aichi Prefectural Police’s Moriyama Precinct, drew his pistol and shouted to the boar “I’ll shoot ya!” (“Utsu zo!” in Japanese) and “Get out of here!”, after which both of the animals turned around and scurried off back into the brush.

Online commenters have been impressed both with the way the officer handled the situation, as well as with the boar’s apparent linguistic skills.

“Boars in Nagoya can understand human languages?!?”
“Wow. Never knew that boars understood Japanese.”
“Hurry for peaceful Japan!”
“I really hope they don’t kill the boars [even though] I understand it’s dangerous for them to be in those parts of the city.”
“Since it seems that Nagoya boars can understand humans’ words, I hope someone like Nausicaa [of the Valley of the Wind] will come along and tell them ‘You’re good little boars. Please return to the forest,” and then they’ll go back to Ghibli Park and live there.”

The boars were seen again later that night in Nagoya’s Kita Ward, in an even more developed part of the city, as shown in the video footage here.

The police officer’s successful attempt at interspecies communication notwithstanding, the authorities are still cautioning residents to be on the lookout for the boars and to keep their distance if they happen to see them. The animals can be extremely dangerous, after all, and preventing any injury-causing encounters will give the boars the best chance of making it back to their usual habitat without being culled.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun via Hachima Kiko, NHK News Web, Twitter
Top image: Wikipedia/Comacontrol (edited by SoraNews24)
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