Ms. Sekiguchi, a female professional baseball player turned police officer who is devoted to investigating sexual crimes, in Saitama City.
Ai Sekiguchi (32) of the Saitama Prefectural Police was the first female professional baseball player to become a police officer. Based on her experience working at a police box, she decided to pursue a career in sex crime investigations, and currently belongs to the First Investigation Division of the Prefectural Police Headquarters. She uses the guts and perseverance she cultivated in baseball while she struggles with sensitive tasks.
I started playing baseball when I was in sixth grade. She said, “She was a good girl, and she didn’t want to lose,” she said, and she devoted herself to practice.
After graduating from university, she received a tryout for women’s professional baseball, saying that “baseball is the best”, and joined East Astraia (later Saitama Astraia) in 2013. She gained popularity as a mood maker, was active in matches and even stood on the stand, but she had a series of injuries and decided to retire in 2016.
Ms. Sekiguchi when she was a female professional baseball player. Active as a catcher (provided by himself)
Her second life began with an unexpected invitation. Since his active days, he has participated in prefectural police fraud prevention events as part of his team activities. Recommended.
He was perplexed, saying, “I didn’t even know how to become a police officer,” but after thinking about it for about a week, he solidified his feelings, saying, “Police work, where you can help people, is attractive, and you can give back to Saitama.” He switched his bat to a pen and studied hard, passing the prefectural police employment exam in 2017. It was the first time in Japan that a former female professional baseball player became a police officer.
What sparked her interest in sex crime investigations was a case she was involved in while working at a police box. Early in the morning in winter, a citizen reported that there was a young woman crying bitterly on the street. At first, the woman refused to respond, telling her to “go away.” He told me that he had been harmed.
When I accompanied him to the hospital, a woman told me, “I’m glad that your sister came.” “I want to be a detective who can stand by victims of sexual crimes and catch criminals.”
In March of this year, I was assigned to the Sex Crime Guidance Section of the First Investigative Division. She is in charge of interviewing victims who are mentally disabled, mentally ill, or young. She says, “She shouldn’t be trying to lead the answer with her own questions.”
In May, I asked female juniors who are now living as men from my professional career to give a lecture on LGBTQ (sexual minorities) at the prefectural police. Sekiguchi said, “I want to prevent LGBTQ sexual crime victims from thinking, ‘The police might not deal with you.'” He plans to continue working to promote understanding within the prefectural police.
As a sex crimes investigator, he is just starting out, and the days of trial and error continue. “Both baseball and the police are team players. (Yusuke Sugihara)
