On the 22nd the “Tokyo Marathon 2015” was run on a course from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (Shinjuku) to Tokyo Big Sight (Ariake), and 36,000 runners sprinted past Palaceside Building. I missed getting photos this year, so lower right I show last year's shot at the Takebashi intersection. This is where runners first catch sight of the Imperial Palace.
So, newspapers and TV alike singled out this year's marathon highlight as the “Running Police.”
The photo above ran on page one of The Mainichi Newspapers on the 23rd under the headline “Police officers also relay,” reporting that “‘Running Police’ were introduced for the first time.” Organizers Yomiuri Shimbun used a photo of an officer on page one, writing in the text that they “ran alongside runners while guarding against terrorism,” and the Tokyo edition carried a short piece with a small photo. Asahi Shimbun ran a photo story on the city news page—and so on. NHK news on the night of the 22nd also introduced them with VTR of advance training, noting among other things that some members had Hakone Ekiden experience.
Needless to say, with the Middle Eastern extremist group IS inciting terror and the Boston Marathon bombing in the United States in memory, domestic marathons introduced “Running Police” for the first time, with 64 officers running in pairs. Wearing small cameras near their ears, they filmed runners and spectators along the course and sent footage in real time to Metropolitan Police headquarters; according to The Mainichi Newspapers, an officer who actually ran said they “could grasp conditions along the route quite well... effective security for a marathon.”
Video supplied by the Metropolitan Police (frame-by-frame) can be viewed online. It is also posted on The Mainichi Newspapers news site ＝photos upper and lower right (http://mainichi.jp/movie/movie.html?id=865314809002). It may feel quite immediate.
It is sad that such stories become main news, but with a volunteer-run event it cannot be helped. In any case, well done to all the runners and to the officers who ran.