Exigent circumstances

"3-chōme-10 Izumichūōkita

Izumi Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa..." Hiromichi read out the address like a corpse.

He had just referenced the whole block as he had told them that every single house had blood in them. The person on the other side of the phone shuddered.

Kanagawa Prefecture is a Japanese prefecture located in the Honshu region of Kantō. At 9,058,094, Kanagawa Prefecture is Japan's second-most populous prefecture and has a geographical area of 2,415 km2.

Yokohama is Kanagawa Prefecture's capital and largest city, and Japan's second-largest city.

As a large prefecture, Kanagawa has two CSI units while Tokyo has three. Comprised of a sergeant and 11 officers from other ranks in each unit, the Kanagawa crime scene services units covers a vast geographical area and responds to an average of 600 crime scenes each month, but sometimes it can be much more.

Two CSI vans which were too many for the peaceful Izumi ward made the scene unusual. They all disembarked from the vans including sergeant Masafumi. After stepping out with a blood collection kit, he immediately found it odd that there were no onlookers.

It seemed like a ghost town.

Masafumi saw Hiromichi on the far right but went to the houses with opened doors. He peered inside; it wasn't too bad compared to the times when he saw a half-eaten corpse but the question about the numbers began to plague him.

He checked the next and the next. Two CSI officers followed behind him, carrying equipment. He found himself jogging between the doors and he spent less time on the inspection with each door.

He couldn't believe it.

He stopped next to Hiromichi panting.

"How-hfuf-many more? Huff-huff"

Hiromichi didn't even look at him. He sat on the doorstep with a pallid complexion and slowly raised his hand. He pointed outwards to the other houses. Masafumi furrowed his brows as he looked in the direction of Hiromichi's finger.

He saw that all the houses on the block across the road all had opened doors. Then he noticed that the other blocks were the same.

He hand-signalled to his subordinates to check the other blocks. They ran around the blocks and out of sight. They started heading back when they reached the half-way point.

"They're all the same." One of them said with a grim expression.

Masafumi looked to the other officer who nodded back at him. He gritted his teeth.

In the morning of Monday, everything was routine. A variety of events were considered to benefit from forensic tests, including an excavator being stolen from a building site and multiple sheds belonging to the Country Fire Authority were broken into.

Then when night hit, this whole mess happened. They were pushed into overtime and there was so much work, they never finished. After work, even when they were just closing off the crime scene to process it the next day, they were still home very late to get a couple of hours of sleep.

Some of them slept in the station. Each day, it seemed like their right to sleep were being denied legally.

Even when junior police officers were sharing some of the CSI tasks, they were still swamped. The current number of CSI employees were never meant to maintain this kind of status quo. He never hated his job so much before.

"This is f***ing impossible! We're never going to go home at this rate!" Masafumi shouted.

"Ahem!"

Masafumi looked toward the person who did that but his anger quickly faded away.

"Chi-Chief Inspector Katsunori! Sir!"

Katsunori looked out from the passenger seat in a police car. Hiromichi got up and saluted the chief inspector, his vigour was slightly dampened from his tone of voice.

"Where's Arata?" Katsunori asked in a grouchy tone.

"He's... We heard a scream so we kicked down the door."

"I'm asking you where he is!"

"Sorry, sir! I don't know where he is!"

"How could you let go of your partner! Did you learn anything at the academy? Go find him now!!!"

Hiromichi started running.

"We'll find him quicker in our car" Masafumi spoke to the driver.

"Yes sir." Said sergeant Mitsunobu.

***

Arata ran from door to door. He got faster and faster until he was sprinting. A cop car appeared on the side of the road.

"Arata!"

Arata twisted his head and recognised Katsunori but he didn't stop running.

"What you are doing is illegal! Stop NOW!"

Arata couldn't stop when the crime scenes were right in front of him. He ran to another door and kicked it in defiance of Katsunori's orders. Mitsunobu moved the car to keep up with Arata.

"That is an order!"

"Don't we have a manhunt going on?" Replied Arata.

A manhunt had been put out for Genji since the massacre. Exigent circumstances apply to emergency cases where public safety could be threatened by the process of obtaining a legal search warrant or could lead to a loss of evidence. This involves cases of "hot pursuit" where a suspect is about to run.

Another example is that police can access the home of a DUI (driving under influence) suspect without a warrant based on the argument that otherwise valuable evidence, namely the blood alcohol content of the suspect, might be lost.

However, warrant or no warrant, it only applies to a single confined area like a house. One cannot break down every door in the ward. This wasn't the secret police like Gestapo. They also weren't in pursuit. There's no reason to connect Genji to these crime scenes either in the context of the law.

"Nice try. That doesn't apply here. I have enough reason to fire your stuck-up ass. Now stop what you're doing or I'll arrest you!"

Arata didn't even bat an eye. He kept kicking down the doors one after another. Most law enforcement would be hard-pressed to stop Arata. They respected the law but also knew that sometimes the rules needed to be bent if not broken to save more lives. Most would turn a blind-eye but Katsunori didn't want to risk getting in trouble.

It wasn't because he was righteous but because the chance for him to be promoted to superintendent rank and be in charge of Midori police station had finally appeared.