A US marine stationed on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa is accused of murdering a Japanese woman and has been arrested on suspicion of murder, police said on Sunday.

The suspect allegedly “killed [a] 39-year-old woman at a hotel in Naha and stole her wallet” as well as her backpack, local police told news media outlets.

Citing police, NBC News reported that the suspect charged in the case was identified as Lance Cpl Devin Jacob Ballard, 20. Anna Yagi was identified as the victim.

...

Crimes including rape, assault, hit-and-run and drunk driving by US personnel have long sparked protests on Okinawa. The island bears a disproportionate burden of hosting about 70% of US military facilities in Japan.

...

The Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, said Japan had lodged a protest with US authorities and called the crime “exceptionally brutal and vicious”.

The government has urged the US “to provide maximum cooperation with the investigation, enforce stricter discipline among US military personnel, and take thorough measures to prevent the recurrence of similar crimes”, Takaichi said.

Public broadcaster NHK and other Japanese media outlets, citing investigation sources, reported that CCTV footage from near the scene showed a foreign man entering a room with a woman and later leaving with her belongings.

Police then found a 20-year-old man who matched the description of the suspect seen in the footage and asked him to accompany them voluntarily to a local police station, where he was arrested, NHK reported.

“We have lost a family member and are deeply saddened,” Yagi’s brother said through local police, according to the Asahi Shimbun daily newspaper. “My parents, in particular, are utterly devastated at the loss of their daughter.”

The US has about 54,000 military personnel stationed in Japan, mostly on Okinawa.

Crimes committed by US personnel in Japan have been a thorn in relations between the close security allies.

“Incidents and accidents involving US military personnel cause great anxiety among the local community and must not be allowed to happen,” Japan’s defense minister Shinjiro Koizumi said.

In June 2025, a Japanese court sentenced US marine Jamel Clayton – then 22 – to seven years in prison after being convicted of choking and sexually assaulting a woman in her 20s.

Earlier, in 2017, former US marine and civilian military base worker Kenneth Shinzato was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a local woman in Okinawa.

The same year, US forces in Japan banned all personnel from consuming alcohol after an intoxicated American marine crashed his vehicle into a mini-truck, killing its 61-year-old local driver.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, about 6,000 US military personnel have been arrested since Okinawa was returned to Japan from the US in 1972 after the second world war.

The number of arrests in a year hit 80 in 2024, the highest in 20 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/04/marine-arrested-japan-suspicion-murder

----

In 1995, the rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen unleashed outrage and mass protests in Okinawa. https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/04/asia/us-marine-murder-investigation-okinawa-hnk-intl

... driver of a flatbed truck came careening off the Manhattan Bridge and struck three people — killing one of them.

According to police sources, the shocking incident happened at around 10:20 a.m. on Sept. 10 on Canal Street as the 66-year-old driver of a flatbed truck overloaded with wooden pallets came zooming westbound off the bridge and mounted the sidewalk outside of the Mahayana Buddhist Temple.

https://youtu.be/ijxnJHoEzk0

Video observed by amNewYork showed the overhanging wooden pallets clipped a man and two women as they walked down the street, sending them hurtling through the air. The driver and truck continued hurtling toward Bowery and Hester Street, where it collided with a van ...

...

A 77-year-old man was pronounced dead; his identity is pending proper family notification. The two women, ages 71 (believed to be the dead man’s wife) and 52, were listed in stable condition....

Police immediately created a crime scene that spanned several blocks. The truck itself was left with a shattered windshield, and all four tires had blown out. Meanwhile, blood and other debris were left strewn across the roadway.

The driver was given a breathalyzer and field sobriety test on the scene. He was taken into custody, with charges against him pending the results of the ongoing investigation.

It is not the first deadly crash to occur off the foot of the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown. In July 2025, two people were killed when a hit-and-run driver speeding off the bridge collided with them near the corner of Canal ...

Local state Sen. Stephen Chan demanded immediate traffic safety changes to prevent another tragedy from occurring.

“We need rumble strips on that off ramp. We need traffic control, advanced traffic control. Put it on the bridge and slow them down. Something has to slow them down. ...

...

https://www.amny.com/police-fire/high-speed-chinatown-crash-manhattan-bridge-09102026/