Summary
Steve Lee Hayes, a 65-year-old American tourist, was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly carving family members’ names into a wooden Torii gate at the Meiji Shrine.
Surveillance footage led police to his hotel, where he was detained.
Hayes admitted to the act, which could result in up to three years in prison or a fine of 300,000 yen ($1,900).
The Meiji Shrine, a significant Shinto site, was built in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. The incident occurs amid a surge in international tourism to Japan this year.
He’s cooked.
For the unaware, Japan has like a 99.9% conviction rate after arrests, because they basically don’t arrest unless they’re absolutely 100% positive that they can secure a conviction. The suspect also has no right to an attorney, and police abuse is common; Even if you’re innocent, they’ll just keep you in an interrogation room without any food or water for 72 hours until you “confess”. They’ll literally just rotate cops into the interrogation room, without giving you a break for food or sleep.
And Japanese prisons are some of the strictest. You’re basically expected to remain silent, and every moment of your time is accounted for. You get like 20 minutes to eat each meal (in your cell) and then like 30 minutes of “recreational” time outside, where you’re expected to kneel in place in an empty courtyard. Moving to and from your cell is akin to old elementary schools where everyone would have to line up single file and silently walk from one place to the next while following the teacher. And that’s pretty much your daily routine for the entire time you’re in. You sit in your cell, slam down what little food you get, silently walk to the courtyard, silently kneel for 30 minutes, silently walk back to your cell, and slam down dinner before bedtime. Any deviation is dealt with swiftly and violently by the guards.
Japan has a very skewed idea of criminal justice, because the prevailing attitude is that if you’re in prison, you must have done something to deserve it. It’s sort of a cyclical problem, where their insanely high conviction rate means that the public already assumes suspects are guilty before they have even been convicted.
Asshole should have his passport revoked on top of being jailed.
As he should be, what an absolute moron.
what a stupid fuck
Do we really need people to look down on that much that it warrants these comments? Don’t get me wrong, he is a jerk and behaves like a teenager while 65, but people here act like he jumped a barrier to shit in a millenia old sarcophagus instead of pressing his thumb into 100 year old wood. I think I may have done worse at my old school.
This site’s against a police state, but wants the government to crack down on this nuisance with all its might. We’re against Religion, but Japan’s emperor cult is sacred. Throw molotovs into governmental buildings, but don’t you dare touch this wooden arch.
Just let him pay the fine, have the sites insurance cover restoration, big whoop.
To be fair, I personally put Shintoism in a very different box than that of typical Western religions. Shits just about respect and balance, not begging for forgiveness from some god and hating gay people.
Fuck this grown ass man.
I would never generalize a religion that much, especially when I don’t know anyone who does practice it or has to live under it. When all you have is how it is represented, you tend to idolize it and miss the practical aspects of the faith, like how hating gays and abortions isn’t explicitly in the bible yet those are more important aspects to Christianity in practice than Sola Fide.
I learned my lesson after reading about Buddhism in Myanmar, if you say it’s just about respect and balance, I don’t believe you.
Carving letters into the wood equals ‘pressing his thumb’ to you? Did you even read the article? Regardless, let me ‘press my thumb’ into your forehead and see if you think it’s fine, just let me be.
Hayes is accused of “carving the alphabet with his fingernails” into the wooden pillar of Meiji shrine gate in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward around 11am on Tuesday, police told the outlet.
So the cost to deface or damage whatever anybody wants is just $2k?
I very specifically said about this case only, a fine is appropriate.
Can you explain how my comment would read as “defacing anything ever should result only in fines”?
It’s because he’s American and Lemmy loves to shit all over Americans.
Oh. I thought maybe he ate a banana on an offering plate or something culturally ambiguous
He fucking carved his name into wood? That’s never OK anywhere
That’s a slap on the wrist if they only impose the fine. That should be a five year jail sentence at least.
You cannot act like a dick like this in other countries. Defacing a religious site no less.
Looks like the Temu version of Bannon.
Why people want to carve names on stuff… It’s the same people who write their names on bathroom doors
No idea but it’s been going on for millennia
Bathrooms are like the only place this is OK…but do it in sharpie so it can easily be removed
Good, americans act like this and they get the consequences they deserve
If anyone acts like this they get the consequences.
Like how dumb do you have to be?
… Checks timeline. Oh thats the norm…
Put that fuckin Boomer in prison for 3 years.
Bordering on Gen X but anyone this disrespectful is still a boomer. They need to jail him. A fine is too easy.
Genx is 1965 – 1980.
At 65, he’s 6 years too old to be Gen X.
I was under the impression that gen x started in the mid 60s, whereas 65 would put this guy at 1959ish
I said bordering for a few reasons. One it is close, i.e. bordering at the change. Two being that I know some people right at that near generational change (same age actually) act way less boomer and more gen x. People aren’t hard lines in the sand like dates. So people born around that generational shift can swing either way. Way more thought than I wanted to explain about an offhanded comment, but there you go.
Lol all good man. It certainly seems like everyone has their own interpretation of generational cutoffs, but you make a good point of how people born near the cusps can swing either way in terms of identity.
Prison would be most appropriate.
The fine sure seems low for defacing an important religious shrine.
Not sure that shrine in particular but I do think torii gates in some shrines are replaced somewhat often. At Inari they had business names behind them which I assume are the ‘sponsors’ of that torii, probably they pay to have the gate fixed and I imagine that brings luck to that business. In short, he might have been lucky to deface the least critical part of the shrine.
My understanding is that the business names are there because Inari is a kami associated with merchants and businesspeople. They donate a gate, slap the company name on it, and Inari provides.
The toriis at meiji jingu are gigantic. It would unfortunately cost millions to replace one.
Then the sentence makes no sense to me
That’s good at least. I’d hate to think this was a century old (or whatever) torii he defaced.
oh, Im just guessing here though (from what I saw when visiting), hopefully that is the case
Kinda like Americans donating to have a bench named after them in a park.
I completely agree
I could have guessed he was over 60 because he wasn’t live streaming the whole thing. Just an old school asshole, not an influencer.
All that really proves is that people don’t need YouTube to do things for attention.
Americans being dumb cunts. What a surprise.
Like our election didn’t give it away?
The rest of the world has known this for years.
So have we.
