Suicide threat boosts police school patrols

Three police stations in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, will increase patrols near schools because a letter received by the education minister Monday in which a student threatened suicide appears to have come from the ward, officials said Friday.

The Ikebukuro, Mejiro and Sugamo police stations will patrol near elementary, junior high and high schools Saturday, the day the sender of the letter threatened to commit suicide inside a school because of bullying.

The letter was addressed to education minister Bummei Ibuki and appears to have been written by a boy in elementary or junior high school. The envelope had a Toshima Ward postmark.

Ibuki received a similar letter Thursday, thought to be from a high school girl, in which the writer also threatened suicide over bullying.

KITAKYUSHU (Kyodo) A 17-year-old girl died Thursday in an apparent suicide leap from the junior high school she graduated from in Kitakyushu, police and local officials said.

The girl was found lying in the schoolyard of the municipal junior high school in Kokurakita Ward at around 9:15 p.m.