They say no one sleeps in Tokyo’s nightlife districts, and here’s a good reason not too.

On a night last December in Tokyo’s Shibuya neighborhood, a man had been out drinking, and, as is often the case after too much imbibing, found himself feeling rather drowsy. So when he got to Dogenzaka, he lay down and got some sleep.

Dogenzaka, though, is not the name of a hotel or apartment complex. It’s not even the name of a coffin meditation salon, or any other sort of place where people are intended to lie down. Dogenzaka is just a part of Shibuya. In other words, the guy was sleeping on the street, in one of Japan’s busiest nightlife quarters.

▼ Dogenzaka-koji, an alleyway lined with bars and restaurants in Dogenzaka

Considering that he was trying to catch 40 winks on the pavement out of inebriated imperative, it’s doubtful that he woke up feeling particularly rested, and his presumed physical discomfort was soon joined by a rush of mental anguish as he realized that while he’d been sleeping, he’d been robbed. In addition to his wallet with about 15,000 yen (US$97) in it, his smartphone and a number of other personal items had been taken, with a total value of around 72,000 yen.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police have now announced, though, that they have arrested a man responsible for the theft, along with two accused accomplices. All three of them are Tunisian nationals, with the 20-year-old man admitting to the charges of theft and the two women, aged 22 and 30, currently denying involvement in the crime. The three were also found to be in possession of multiple credit and ATM cards registered to other people, and so the police are investigating the possibility that they were involved in other robberies/frauds.

▼ The accused being taken into custody

A large number of online reactions to the incident have focused on the nationalities of the people arrested and the questionable wisdom of sleeping in the street.

“So we’ve got a battle between criminals and some drunk dude sleeping in the street.”
“Obviously it was wrong of them to steal from him, but come on, don’t sleep in the street.”
“I get that saying ‘Don’t sleep in the street’ is a reflex response, but nice job catching the thief.”
“So they’re getting deported, right?”
“Deport them, seize all of their assets in Japan, and bar them from ever reentering the country.”
“It seems like you hear about a foreigner committing some crime almost every day now.”
“Japanese people have become naive because of how safe things are.”
“Japan is starting to get like how countries overseas are.”
“Back in the Heisei period [1989-2019] the guy who slept in the street probably would have been fine, but things are different now.”

As strange as it might seem from the perspective of other countries, Japan really is, or at least has been, a safe enough country that even if you did fall stumble into slumber in a bar district, it wasn’t a given that your wallet would be taken. Not that that sort of thing has never happened, which is why many online commenters are calling the drunk man dumb for not drinking moderately enough to be able to make it back to a safe sleeping space. Still, there’s not the immediate assumption that a guy who’s passed out and alone is going to be robbed, and with the attention the case has attracted, there’s probably little chance of leniency if the suspects are convicted.

Source: TBS News Dig via Yahoo! Japan News via Itai News, FNN Prime Online, YouTube/FNNプライムオンライン
Top image: Pakutaso
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