Bodyguard foils attempted assassination of Japanese PM Kishida

In the wake of the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe less than a year ago, another wannabe assassin was thwarted by a quick-acting bodyguard protecting the current prime minister, Fumio Kishida.  Ryan Saavedra of the Daily Wire has the story.

[A] quick thinking bodyguard for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida saved the political leader from harm after a man threw a explosive device at him during a campaign event.

Kishida, who was campaigning in western Japan, was not injured in the attack, but a police officer did receive treatment for some minor injuries. Police immediately detained a young man — tackling him to the ground — after “the suspicious object” was thrown at Kishida.

You can see in the blurry Twitter video below that the guard saw the white object approaching and brought down his briefcase to intercept it:

Then he used the briefcase to sweep it away:

A bodyguard blocks an explosive, kicks it away, and quickly unfolds a shield while evacuating the Japanese Prime Minister. pic.twitter.com/NIQWKqshNj

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) April 16, 2023

The explosive [sic] happened several seconds after the prime minister’s team whisked him away. After the bang, people scream and run away while white smoke can be seen rising from where the explosion went off.

Video appeared to show bystanders grabbing the suspect, who is a 24-year-old named Kimura.

Evidently, it was not a huge explosion, probably from a homemade device.  But recalling that the accused successful assassin of former P.M. Abe used a crude homemade gun, the lethality of such amateur tools of destruction cannot be dismissed.

There is no information yet on the attempted assassin’s motives.

Japan has an unhappy past when it comes to political assassinations, despite being a country with a very low rate of personal violent crime.  Although likely unrelated to the earlier murder of Mr. Abe, this attempt has got to have a lot of police and politicians very anxious.