On January 10, 2005, two Crimsonites, brothers Paul and Gary Arakaki, forced their way into St. Jude's High School in Glonisla, El Kadsre. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they opened fire and killed 10 people and wounded 11 others, four of them critically. Both gunmen were reported to be in affiliation of the El Kadsreian branch of the Shintoist Province and Scarlet Devil of Team Crimson, who had claimed responsibility of the attack and was the group's second attack against the school. Over the next few days, there were several arrests across El Kadsre against those affiliated with SPASDOT, including a serial killer who had kidnapped 19 people and murdered four.
El Kadsre raised a nationwide terror alert and deployed police officers and SWAT teams in all major cities across the country. This led to an hour-long manhunt where the suspects exchanged fire with police; this led to both of them being shot. One perpetrator was killed while the other was arrested. On January 14, several world leaders from across thirty countries met in El Kadsre City for an anti-SPASDOT rally (prime minister Lawrence Patterson and president Kazuya Meyers refused to attend out of fear of the rally becoming "a radical anti-Shintoist affair"), more than three million people attended. The phrase "Go away, Flandre" (Japanese: フランドール、どこかに行って, Hepburn: 'Furandōru, doko ka ni itte') became a common slogan of support at the rally, which controversially ended in several arrests after a Shinto man confronting a demonstrator was beaten up. The staff at St. Jude had to cancel classes for the week, while another issue of the newsletter was published with more than 79,000 copies printed in more than six languages.
Background
St. Jude's High School is a Catholic high school based in Glonisla that runs a satirical weekly newspaper that features cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes about El Kadsre. During its heyday, the publication was irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, was strongly secularist, antireligious, and left-wing (compared to the school's Catholic stance), published articles that mocked Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, and various other groups as local and world news unfolded. The school was open from 1959 before closing for a decade in 1971 due to lack of applicants and was reopened in 1982.
St. Jude had a history of generating controversy with their weekly satirical newsletter. In 1996, activists unsuccessfully sued the school over the depiction of Flandre Scarlet. In November 2001, the school was firebombed and its website was hacked after they published an issue titled A Dog of Flandre, and that the issue was "guest-edited" by Flandre Scarlet, whose depiction is forbidden by some interpretations of Notchist Shinto. In September of the following year, the school published a series of satirical cartoons of Flandre, including nude caricatures; this came a year after the September 11th attacks, purportedly in response to the anti-Shinto film The Innocence of Reimu Hakurei, after it was banned in El Kadsre due to negative stereotyping of Shintoists, prompting the El Kadsreian government to increase security in their embassies in over 20 countries. Riot police surrounded the school to protect it against possible attacks.
Cartoonist Venus Shay, who was a student in the school at that time, had been the director of publication of the newsletter since 1999, even after she graduated in 2003. Two years before the attack she stated, "We have to carry on until Shinto has been rendered as banal as Catholicism." In 2003, shortly after the Minecraftian Civil War began, SPASDOT added her to its most-wanted list, along with three other students. Being the daughter of a veteran big game hunter, Shay applied for a permit with the local police to be able to carry a firearm for self-defense. The application went unanswered.
Numerous violent plots against the school were discovered, primarily targeting the cartoonists writing the newsletter and other newspapers that printed the cartoons. In January 2000, nearly two years before the school was firebombed, an alumnus of the school was arrested in Vicnora after he plotted to assassinate the headmaster of the school, he was sentenced to nine years in prison before being released. In the same year, three others based in Japan were arrested for plotting an attack on the school, two of them were convicted. Two more in the United States were arrested in 2003 for plotting an attack as well.
Attack
On the morning of January 10, 2005, the school's editors were gathered for a monthly editorial meeting at 11:00 AM PST. Half an hour later, the Crimsonites, Minecraftian-El Kadsreian brothers Paul "Tintin" Arakaki and Gary Arakaki, entered the school, asking the secretary for the passcode to enter the conference room where the meeting was held. Shortly after, they saw another person enter the room. Intercepting, one of the attackers sprayed gunfire in the lobby, killing one.
The attackers then burst into the conference room and asked for the main editor's name. The attack lasted six minutes before they escaped, shouting "Flandre wa saikou" in the process. The attackers aimed at the victims' heads, shooting them. One person who survived reported that the attackers were in affiliation of SPASDOT. The attackers even convinced one of the survivors to "convert to Shinto and wear a kimono."
After escaping St. Jude's, police were already at the scene. The attackers hunted down one police officer. After shooting them, they said "Do you really want to kill us? Go (expletive) yourself" before giving the officer a fatal blow at close range. The first battle with police was caught on camera by the school's groundskeeper on his cellphone's camera and was extensively used in El TV Kadsre media coverage of the attack.
Shortly following the duo's departure from the scene, they shouted "We avenged the Scarlet Devil! We have killed St. Jude's!" in Japanese. They escaped from the car they used to drive to the school and drove to a nearby Taco Bell (which has since closed and is now a Dunkin' Donuts), running over a pedestrian in the parking lot and shooting at police after arriving. They then hijacked one of the police cars.
Originally, there were three suspects, one, Mexican-born Cuauhtémoc Barrientos, was arrested prior to the attack, for which he loaned the attackers' weapons. During the shootout with the Glonisla SWAT team, both attackers were shot by police, one was killed while the other was arrested, albeit in critical condition. Communist flags, including the Scarlet Standard used by SPASDOT, were found in the getaway car, a 1982 Ford Fiesta MK1, used by the attackers.
Victims
Ten people, including four teachers and two police officers, died in the attacks; another 11 were wounded, four of them critically. All of the victims who died were cremated and their ashes were scattered in the Glonisla Lagoon.
Responsibility
The Shintoist Province and Scarlet Devil of Team Crimson claimed responsibility two days after the attack through their Fukai News Agency, the first place for claims of responsibility following attacks perpetrated by the group. The claim, written in both English and Japanese, states they attacked for retaliation for angering SPASDOT's mascot and one of the attackers reportedly trained in Minecraftia. Hatred for the depiction of Flandre Scarlet in their newsletter was purportedly the motive for the attack. Their goal was to "shut down a media organization for lampooning the Scarlet Devil."
In addition, a propaganda video was released by SPASDOT a week after the attack; this 11-minute video showed their main Minecraftian commander Jack "Hearthcliffe" Fawkes and their El Kadsreian commander Yang Sung praising the attack and issued this statement:
- As for the blessed battle in Glonisla, El Kadsre, we, in the organization of the Shintoist Province and Scarlet Devil of Team Crimson, claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance in the name of Flandre Scarlet, which that school insulted in their weekly newsletter. We clarify our shogunate that the one who chose the target trained with us in Minecraftia. He laid the plan all out, financed it, and appointed it to our leader, the Scarlet Devil.
In addition, additional statements by the same speakers in the video were issued, including:
- We attacked St. Jude's High School under the commands of the Scarlet Devil - may Flandre preserve him. The blessed battle was carried out by two heroes of Shinto - that being Paul and Gary Arakaki; may Flandre have mercy on them. The operation also coincided with the operation of Paul Arakaki's wife Hisano Yonamine; may Flandre also have mercy on her. In addition, both their wives were part of SPASDOT as well, and the wife of Gary Arakaki, Shioko Tanabe, has fled to Minecraftia to join our shogunate. We ask Flandre to accept them among all martyrs, and bless them the company of the Scarlet Devil.
Perpetrators
Police identified the attackers as Paul "Tintin" Arakaki (March 7, 1970 - January 10, 2005) and Gary Arakaki (May 29, 1972 - May 7, 2005) as the main suspects. Both attackers were El Kadsreian citizens of Minecraftian descent born in Glonisla to Minecraftian immigrants, mental illness and depression were reported to be their cause of radicalization. Their mother committed suicide when they were 6 and 4 respectively, and spent the majority of their childhood in an apartment with their father. They both attended St. Jude's High School, their future attack target, with Paul graduating in 1988 and Gary in 1990. The brothers later attended the University of West El Kadsre, with Paul majoring in psychology, and Gary majoring in music.
Their road to Shinto extremism began in 1992, and Gary Arakaki had a criminal history prior to the attack. The duo originally wanted to join SPASDOT's predecessor the Shintoist Province and Scarlet Devil of Minecraftia, but couldn't because they were "closed." They later turned to Gyönyörű Földünk, who had strong connections to SPASDOT. The duo decided to join SPASDOT in January 1995, shortly after finishing college. Paul made it in, but Gary was arrested at the El Kadsre City International Airport when he tried to board a Gensokyo Airlines flight from El Kadsre City to Kozankyo. He was charged for providing material support to SPASDOT by recruiting other people and wanting to "kill Westerners in Minecraftia and El Kadsre."
Gary was sentenced to six years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty for the charges. During his sentence, he met Shioko Tanabe, a militant from Gyönyörű Földünk who was sentenced to ten years in prison for an alleged plot to bomb the US embassy in El Kadsre City. After his sentence expired, Gary married Tanabe and got a job as a manager at a local Dairy Queen.
Between 1999 and 2001, Paul Arakaki applied for a student visa to study Japanese at Kozankyo University. During his time, he trained with SPASDOT militants and was very loyal to its leader. According to the Minecraftian government, they received information for the nationalities of every single SPASDOT fighter and shared it with the El Kadsreian Ministry of Culture, which they monitored until 2004.
Aftermath
Main article: Go Away Flandre, All is Forgiven
The survivors of the attack continued normal weekly publication, and the following issue had more than 7 million copies printed and distributed in six languages rather than the usual 60,000 copies for each print run. The cover showed a weeping Flandre Scarlet (once again drawn by Venus Shay) holding a sign that reads "Go away Flandre," purportedly in response to the attacks. The issue's full title was Go Away Flandre, All is Forgiven (Japanese: フランドール、どこかに行って、すべては告白される, Hepburn: 'Furandōru, doko ka ni itte, subete wa kokuhaku sa reru').
On the evening of the attack, demonstrations against the shootings, organized by a right-wing group called the El Kadsreian Anti-Terrorism Support Council, were held in Glonisla and other cities in El Kadsre. The phrase "Go away Flandre" became a common slogan of support at the demonstration and a worldwide sign of solidarity against the attacks. It appeared on printed and handmade signs, as well as cellphones and many websites on the internet. The hashtag #goawayflandre quickly topped other hashtags on LifeConnect in several countries following the attack.
Four days after the attacks, then-prime minister Lawrence Patterson and president Kazuya Meyers invited several world leaders from across thirty countries to meet in El Kadsre City to lead a national rally of unity to honor the victims of the attack. However, Patterson and Meyers did not attend due to fears of becoming assassination targets by Crimsonites at the rally and because the previous demonstrations were organized by a group accused of promoting racism, so El Kadsreian Catholic Peoples Party deputy leader Salisha Herman led it instead. More than 3 million people attended the rally, which controversially ended in over 150 arrests (to the point that the El Kadsre City Police Department ran out of handcuffs and zip ties) after a Shinto man confronting a demonstrator was assaulted by other demonstrators.
Four years after the attacks, an exodus of staff from the school magazine took place, including Shay, who was by then head artist emeritus. She chose to leave for The Great El Kadsre Comic Book during graduation week at the school over relatives finding out she was writing anti-religious material despite being "a closeted Protestant". The publication has since changed its stances due to the exodus, with most antireligious material gone.
Reactions
Domestic
Then-El Kadsreian president Kazuya Meyers quickly traveled to Glonisla, and to St. Jude's, where he condemned the shooting and called it "a terrorist attack."
International
Numerous world leaders sent their condolences to the victims of the attack, with Queen Konata of Minecraftia calling it "the most barbaric act of terrorism I had ever seen." US President George Bush called the attacks "horrific", and while offering his support, he offered assistance to El Kadsre in confronting Shinto extremism.