Day 7 - Tokyo Police Department

Through a professional colleague, I was given contact information for a Tokyo Police Department inspector.  This inspector had apparently received a tour of my department a couple of years ago, and had made the offer to reciprocate if any of us showed up in Tokyo.

Well, I called him on the offer, and he made the arrangements to make it happen.

Inspector Hideto Hayashi would be our host.  He agreed to meet us at our hotel, and show us around the Tokyo Police headquarters, and his local police station in the Omori area of Tokyo.

Punctually, he did arrive at our hotel lobby right at 0930.  We presented him with our "omiyage" - a gift that is presented to a host for social occasions.  It was recommended that we bring something to present to him and others we meet.  Though lots of omiyage gifts are avaiable locally around Tokyo (already wrapped), we decided to bring something from Seattle - as it is though that a gift from abroad that is not normally avaiable in Japan is more thoughtful.  So, we got a bunch of Applets and Cotletts.   It just meant that for the first time in a long time, we had to have a checked bag for our flight.  Eh, not a big deal, as we get a couple of free checked bags for the international flight.

We left for the subway, and made our way to the Tokyo headquarters.  Here, we met with a public relations officer, and he led us on a tour of their headquarters.  It included a short video of the Tokyo Police deparment - an overview of their role, training, specialty units, investigations, and patrol duties.

He also showed us their museum. Oddly enough, he woudn't let me take pictures inside the museum - except at a designated photo corner with a static display motorcycle.

I'm not sure why that was the case.  The museum only had displays of uniforms, insignias, crime investigation tools, and some confiscated weapons.

We then went to an overlook of the communications center.  Their "110" center had an area for call receivers and radio dispatchers.  This center was one of two in Tokyo, with the other center responsible for the western half of Tokyo.  This room was staffed with officers and retired officers - no civilian employees working the phones or radios.  A large city map and status display board of calls was in the front of the room, and all of the dispatch positions faced this wall - like Houston Mission Control.  Again, no photos allowed.

That completed our tour of the headquarters.  Hideto had made a reservation for our lunch, and despite the light rain, we decided to walk to the Ginza area.  On the way, he took us by the Imperial Palace grounds (across the street).

Our lunch was a traditional Japanese meal at a restaurant called Kani Doraku. This lunch required us to remove our shoes and sit at a low table with low chairs (fortunately, not pillows).  The lunch was served in courses by waitresses in kimonos.  This was a fantastic lunch.  The restaurant specialized in crab, and each course had a crab influence - crab legs, crab miso soup, deep fried crab cakes, a crab salad, crab in rice, crab soup, and some pickled vegetables.  The servings were small, but the entire meal was filling and delicious.

Hideto, being the gracious host, would NOT allow me to pick up the check.  I certainly offered, though.

We then made our way, by train, to his local police station - the Omori area.  This is a local station that has approx. 200 officers, and is responsible for a "district" in Tokyo.  I believe there are around 36 districts in Tokyo.  It's a large department.

He showed us around his office.  As an Inspector, he was in charge of around 20 officers in a detective environment.  He answers to a Chief Inspector, who is in the desk next to him.  Their desks are in the same room as the officers.  These are administrators that can't hide from their workers.

He also showed us their defensive tactics work area, where they practice either Judo or Kendo (stick fighting).  There were other offices and training areas, a cafeteria, and a general meeting area for their morning briefings.  The briefings happened to be on the rooftop.  I guess they do briefing there, rain or shine.

He then got me to the area I was most interested in - the traffic motorcycle area.  For this station, there are only 3 motorycle officers.  Two of them met with me, and showed me their motorcycles.  The two motorcycle officers did not speak english, but a translator was there.  We exchanged information about how we do our jobs.  Mostly, the jobs are about the same.  Police work, in general, is about the same all over the world.  We just have different uniforms, languages, training, and techniques.

They allowed me to sit on their motorcycles while I showed them pictures of my motorcycle.  Of, course, there was a photo op.

Hideto then took us to a Koban, a "police box".  In addition to having officers in cars on patrol, Tokyo uses an extensive network of Koban mini police stations.  Usually, one to four officers are stationed in one, and they take care of police services in the local neighborhood, in concert with the car police officers.  The Koban can also be the central point of getting directions, turing in found property, or initiating criminal complaints.

I also noted that some police cars were driving around with their emergency lights activated, but no one was yielding the right of way to them.  Hideto explained that these were "crime prevention" cars.  They drive around with their red light bars on to be more visible.  If they were in a hurry, they would turn on their siren, then cars would yield to them.  Again, much different than in the US.

With that, our tour ended.  Hideto got us to a rail station, we thanked him for his time and gracious treatment, and we made our way onto the train for the ride back to Shinjuku and the hotel.

Tomorrow - Hiroshima.