Japanese Teen Killed Because He Couldn't Understand -- Exchange Student Heard A Shouted `Freeze!' But Kept Walking

TOKYO - All of Japan's national TV networks here took time during their national news programs last night to offer a lesson in English. In tones of amazement and terror, the news anchors explained how the word "freeze" can be used to mean "don't move or I'll shoot!"

An apparent failure to understand that led to tragedy Saturday night when a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student living in Baton Rouge, La., was shot to death by a neighbor.

The high school junior, Yoshihiro Hattori, had been going to a Halloween party when he walked to a neighbor's house by mistake. The neighbor heard someone in his yard, according to news reports, and shouted, "Freeze!" Hattori, after two months in America, did not understand the command and kept walking. The neighbor then opened fire.

For the American news media, it was just another killing. In Japan, though, the real-life Halloween horror story quickly became a major national concern.

This was partly because shooting is rare here. But the case is newsworthy mainly because it tends to confirm all the worst impressions the Japanese have of the United States.

"America - what a country!" said TV Asahi news analyst Takashi Wada. "You can't even walk around outside and be safe. Many people live in fear all the time over there."

"In America, this is called freedom," noted TBS network anchorman Tetsuya Chikushi. "The gun lobby says this is a matter of freedom, to have a gun. This is America's worst disease, I think. Guns everywhere - it's like a cancer."

"No wonder," agreed Chikusi's co-anchor, Akemi Hamao, "we Japanese can't understand American society."

Ownership of almost any weapon, including guns, swords, and daggers, is illegal in Japan. Even among mobsters, guns are so rare that gang battles are usually fought with fists or kitchen knives. There is so little street crime that the Japanese language doesn't have a word for "mugging."

Opinion polls show that most Japanese still rate the United States as "No. 1" in the world. American movies, music, fashion and fast food are the very definition of "cool" for young people here. But nowadays, these feelings are coupled with a sense of disillusionment, even disdain, for a society that is seen here as riddled by crime, drugs and fatal shootings in suburban backyards. About 4 million Japanese visit the United States each year, and many come back with stories of encounters with crime.

Accordingly, journalists here reporting on the Baton Rouge killing had no trouble recalling previous cases: a 16-year-old Japanese high school girl stabbed to death in Fremont, Calif., a group of Japanese college students mugged and robbed in a public park in Denver at midday.

Hattori, the victim in this weekend's case, was a high school junior from Nagoya who had arrived in Baton Rouge in late August. He had recently written his classmates in Nagoya about life in America. News reports said the letter contained news of the soccer team, lessons in tap dancing, and incidents of racial discrimination that the boy had witnessed.

On Saturday evening, Hattori, wearing a tuxedo with a white jacket, walked down the street from his home with a friend, heading for a Halloween party.

There were conflicting reports about the events that led to the shooting, but news services said the teenagers accidentally went to the home of Rodney Peairs, which was adorned with Halloween decorations and a few doors away from their real destination. At some point, Peairs came out with a .44 pistol in his hand and shouted, "Freeze!"

The American boy immediately stopped. But Hattori, who would have been taught in his English classes here that "freeze" has to do with making ice, kept walking. The man shot him in the chest and he died a short time later.

Peairs was questioned but not immediately arrested.