Americans don’t have the best reputation in the world right now. They’ve always had a rocky reputation in Japan, where repeated abuses by US soldiers stationed in Okinawa continue to anger the local populace.
For some reason, some dumbass decided to make the situation even worse.
According to TNC, a bar employee in Fukuoka City’s Chuo District called police at 7am on March 1st to say he was “having a row with a foreigner.” When police came, the employee reported that a foreign man had come to the bar after it was closed.
The man left – only to come back in, grab a beer stein, and crack it over the head of a 19-year-old college student, for some reason. The young man sustained an injury that drew blood and fled to the rear of the store. Thankfully, the injury doesn’t appear serious or life-threatening.
Police arrested the man on the scene. Authorities identify him as (sic) Lucas Alexander Ford Ruffin (ラフィン・ルーカス・アレクサンダー・フォード), a 24-year-old US Navy sailor based at Sasebo. (Try to fit that name on a Japanese residence card.)
Ruffin was apparently too drunk for police to interrogate. The investigation is ongoing.
The soldier could be in trouble, not just with Japanese authorities, but with the US military. According to Military.com, new “liberty time” rules instituted last year severely curtail off-base drinking. The rules come after a Marine based in Okinawa was accused of sexually assaulting a woman.
Multiple incidents of sexual assault against women in Okinawa by US service members have stoked bitterness against the American military presence there for years. Thousands of protestors have demonstrated against the current base’s move to Henoko.
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