Okinawa Police determine broken farm shed windows caused by stray bullet

Okinawa Police determine broken farm shed windows caused by stray bullet

One of the bullet holes found in the farm shed in Sukuta. June 22, around 6:30 p.m. Sukuta, Nago


 

June 28, 2018 Ryukyu Shimpo Digital Edition

 

 

Okinawa Prefectural Police announced on June 28 that a crime lab had confirmed that the two windows of a farm shed in an orchard in Sukuta, Nago, which were broken on June 21 by, “what appeared to be a fired bullet,” were in fact caused by a discharged firearm.

 

A single bullet had been fired, although the owner of the bullet remains unclear. Okinawa Police say that it had likely been fired by one of the heavy firearms in use at the nearby U.S.-run Camp Schwab, and they have inquired with the camp’s military police. The U.S. military has still not indicated whether or not the bullet was theirs, but as a precautionary measure has kept Camp Schwab’s firing range 10 closed since June 22.

 

This is certainly not the first time there has been an incident involving a stray bullet from Camp Schwab in the Sukuta neighborhood, so the likelihood that this stray round came from the U.S. military is high.

 

The Okinawa Police were able to confirm that based on the scarring on the bullet, which can act as a “fingerprint” linking it to a specific firearm, that the bullet had been fired by a heavy weapon.

 

They have requested the U.S. military, who use heavy weapons, provide data as well as some bullets of the same type.

 

In 2002, there was a similar incident involving a bullet fired from an auto-cannon landing in a nearby pineapple grove in Sukuta.

 

(English translation by T&CT and Sam Grieb)

 

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