A US sailor yesterday was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving causing an accident on Okinawa, where public anger has run high over crimes by US military personnel.
Aimee Mejia, 21, assigned to Kadena base in Okinawa, was arrested after driving the wrong way on a freeway and smashing head-on into two vehicles late on Saturday, police spokesman Takashi Shirado said.
She was not injured, but two people in the other cars were injured, one in the arm and the other in the chest, he said.
The US military did not immediately respond to e-mail requesting comment.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida spoke with US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy about the arrest, with Kishida asking the US do more to prevent a recurrence, the ministry said in a statement.
Kennedy offered her regrets to the family of those injured, the ministry said.
US military personnel are under a midnight curfew and off-base drinking is banned this month in Okinawa after a former US Marine who worked on a US military base was arrested after he led police to a woman’s body.
He is being held on suspicion of abandoning the body, while police investigate.
Okinawa is home to more than half of about 50,000 US troops based in Japan. Protests are common on the island, where residents feel they are being forced with an unfair burden of housing the US troops under a bilateral security agreement.
The suspected murder of the woman was such a critical issue it came up during US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Japan.
Obama offered his condolences and promised the US would fully cooperate to have the man prosecuted under Japanese law.
Japan and the US have been working together to relocate a US Marine Corps air station from a densely populated neighborhood in central Okinawa to another part of the island, but the project has repeatedly been delayed. Protesters are demanding that the facility be moved off Okinawa.
In March, a sailor was arrested on charges of raping a Japanese woman.
A 1995 rape of a schoolgirl, in which three US servicemen were convicted, set off widespread outrage.
Although sexual crimes are especially sensitive, people say car accidents are also a problem, because sometimes the driver will flee back into the base grounds in a hit-and-run, making prosecution difficult.
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