A Konami employee has been arrested for attempted murder after attacking a boss with a fire extinguisher, reports suggest.
The Japanese news outlet Livedoor has reported that a 41 year-old employee at Konami has been arrested after he attacked a former boss with a fire extinguisher. The report, translated by Siliconera, states that incident occurred in Konami’s Ginza office building; the employee is said to have approached the 48 year-old former boss from behind, stuck him with a fire extinguisher, and co-workers were forced to pin the culprit down before more harm could be caused.
The victim survived the attack, though, the injury is said to have “Put him in hospital for a week.”
Workplace “harassment” is said to have been the motive behind the attack. “The reason why the police charged him with attempted murder is because the culprit said that the boss had been using his higher position in the company to harass him,” Siliconera’s Stephanie Liu writes, “and thus he had hit his former boss with intent to kill.”
Of course, it’s impossible to verify the claim of harassment at this stage, nor the report that the allegations of bullying were already flagged to Konami’s HR department. Konami has yet to provide a statement about the incident, and neither of the two people at the centre of the incident been named at the time of writing.
The incident comes within days of Konami announcing a new “major production centre” in Osaka, with the company appearing to be renewing its interest in game development and its reputation as an employer. Staff salaries are set to be raised, while Konami states that it’s “taken various steps to promote management emphasised on human capital, improve employee engagement, and enhance its competitiveness.”
