At around 1pm on August 22nd, 2019, Okabayashi Hinata wore a new shirt and went to play outside on his bicycle, carrying his favorite encyclopedia.

At 5pm, the family was worried that Hinata was not back home and went to search for him.

His father visited Hinata’s friends’ house, but the friends said, “we didn’t play with him.”

The family called the police and the search begun.

His bicycle was found behind his friends’ house previously visited by his father, his encyclopedia and sandals were found in the bank of Shimoda River.

Next day (August 23rd 4:20 pm) he was found dead in the river.

• When Hinata’s father visited their house on 22nd, Hinata’s friends A, B, C, (brothers who are in 1st, 3rd, 5th grade) replied that they did not play with Hinata.
  Police found out later that it was a lie, Hinata was with these three brothers and another friend D. 

• Then they started saying “Hinata went into the river by himself, pretending to be an otter.”  (Later they changed their account again saying he pretended to be an alligator.)
  Hinata cannot swim.  He was only starting to practice dipping his face in the water and was afraid to even go near shallow water even when people invited him to play.  It is hard to believe that Hinata would go into the river where sewage flows into.  The water level was higher due to rain.

• The friends said “we were scared to see him drown, so we left.”
  Why didn’t they call for help?  There’s heavy traffic around the area.  It should not be hard for elementary school students, especially in 5th and 3rd grade to call for help.  They even passed by Hinata’s mother who was looking for Hinata, but they did not tell anything.  They did not even tell their own parents after they got home.

• After they saw Hinata drown, they discussed, “what shall we do with Hinata’s encyclopedia and sandals?”

• After the accident, the children rode Hinata’s bicycle and went to look for stag beetles in nearby shrine, and hid the bicycle in the mountain behind the children’s house. 

• With these doubtful points, the family asked for reinvestigation.  On October 15th 2019, they brought petition signed by 76,214 people to call for reinvestigation to the Kochi Higashi police station, but the police did not reinvestigate.

Hinata’s parents repeatedly consulted the school that Hinata was being bullied, but they did not take any actions.  The school has not even held a conference to this day to explain about the accident to the students’ parents.  Although many parents requested, they refuse, saying “there’s nothing we can announce.”

On November 7th 2019, Hinata’s family requested the Nankoku City education board to set up a third committee to investigate the possibility that Hinata might have drowned as a result of bullying.  On November 19th, the third committee has been set up.

The police determined that Hinata died of accident merely one hour after his body was found.  Autopsy report was made by the accounts of the children who were with Hinata when he drowned.  There are no pictures of evidence, and very few documents.  Police said, “even if we did find evidence, we cannot convict children.”

Even though 76,214 people signed the petition, the police has not reinvestigated.

The family has submitted testimony accounts of over one hundred people with their contacts also, but the police has not even contacted a half of them.

On 22nd February 2020, the family started the second petition, this time to submit to the National Police Agency.

Please kindly participate in this online petition below.