The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) took a 65-year-old American tourist into custody Wednesday for allegedly defacing a gate at the famous Meiji Shrine.
Authorities named the alleged perpetrator as Steve Lee Hayes and claimed that the suspect confessed to the crime of property damage to the gate, The Japan Times reported. Hayes reportedly said he “wrote his family members’ names.”
Tokyo police have arrested a 65-year-old American man on suspicion of property damage after he allegedly carved letters into the wooden pillar of a torii gate at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward. https://t.co/zTEiGhJJWY
— The Japan Times (@japantimes) November 14, 2024
Hayes allegedly employed his fingernails to carve five letters into a wooden torii gate Tuesday at approximately 11:15 a.m., according to The Japan Times. Police used security footage to determine that…
