Tag: assault

I have been stared at and my wife called names in Korea, but I knew getting in any altercation would only lead to me being the loser legally which is what this sergeant is about to find out:

A U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) sergeant in his 30s is under investigation for allegedly assaulting an 18-year-old male student in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, leaving the teenager with severe injuries.

According to the police, the sergeant, identified as A, is accused of punching the teenager, B, in the face near Pyeongtaek Station around 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 17. The attack caused significant injuries, and A has been charged with assault. The Pyeongtaek Police Station booked Sergeant A on charges of assault.

The victim’s father described the severity of the injuries during an interview with JTBC on Nov. 19. “The doctor said it was hard to believe this injury was caused by a person’s fist,” he said. “In all his years as a plastic surgeon, he had never seen bones damaged to this extent from a punch.”

He added that B would need to wear oral prosthetics and keep his jaw stabilized for at least eight weeks. “The injuries are so severe that he might suffer lifelong complications,” the father said.

The sergeant claimed that he was also assaulted by B, prompting police to charge the teenager with assault. However, CCTV footage from the scene does not show B physically reacting to the sergeant’s actions.

The altercation reportedly began when A confronted B, asking, “Why are you staring at me?” Witnesses mentioned that A had been arguing loudly with a Korean woman at the time, which attracted the attention of passersby.

The father added, “The Korean woman with the sergeant cursed at my son, asking why he was staring. My son responded that he wasn’t looking, but she kept pointing at him and approaching. As she continued swearing and pushing his chest, the sergeant punched my son when he was unprepared.”

Korea Times via a reader tip

You can red more at the link, but the sergeant be ready to pay a large compensation payment to the man he punched.

This incident does remind of an incident 20 years ago when a Korean female that worked at Gyeongbokgung Palace started screaming at me and falsely claiming I was laughing at her.

I was leading a group of Soldiers with one of my KATUSAs to visit Gyeongbokgung Palace. When we arrived we were excited to see that a changing of the palace guards was taking place. The guards wore armor and carried medieval weapons and marched around with flags.

I asked my KATUSA what the flags represented and he didn’t know. So he told me he would ask one of the people who worked at Gyeongbokgung if they knew. He walked over to a young lady in a traditional hanbok who obviously worked at the palace and asked her if she knew what the flags meant. She didn’t know and my KATUSA asked the other palace people if they knew. None of them knew.  My KATUSA walked back over and told me that none of them knew. I then checked a tourist brochure of Gyeongbokgung and I started laughing because all the definitions for all the flags was in the brochure the whole time while we were trying to find out what they meant.

Right after this the young female worker came over and started screaming at me in Korean and then in English she said that this is an anti-American area that we cannot go here and we should leave. I told her if she is anti-American that is her problem, not mine because I get along with Koreans just fine.  She then began screaming at my KATUSA in Korean saying that we were laughing at her because she didn’t know what the flags meant and wanted me to apologize. My KATUSA told her we were not laughing at her and she misunderstood what we were laughing at. We were laughing at having the brochure with us the whole time and not knowing what the flags meant. She kept going on in Korean screaming at us trying to get me to apologize.

By this time everyone was now staring at me getting screamed at by this Korean woman in hanbok. We just walked away and left, but fortunately no one punched me in the face like this sergeant did to the Korean man for supposedly staring at his wife. Like what happened to me, it was probably just a misunderstanding that the sergeant overreacted to.

This shows how much times have changed in Korea. Years ago people would not have intervened in fear of getting sued by the assaulter:

A South Korean man who sustained serious injuries while trying to stop an assault of a woman will be designated as a “wounded noble person” by the law and receive state compensation, the city government of Jinju said Monday.

The city government recently granted a model citizen certificate to the man in his 50s, and is preparing for the abovementioned official designation. The Act on Honorable Treatment and Support for Persons Who Died or Were Injured for Public Good stipulates benefits for those who died or were injured while making rescue efforts without any official duty to do so.

One meeting such criteria is defined as a “deceased or wounded noble person” by the act, and can receive compensation, benefits when getting jobs, and can even be buried in the National Cemetery in cases of particularly valuable contributions.

“He sacrificed himself while trying to rescue a citizen, so we (Jinju city) decided that we should help him… In addition to the designation, we will arrange for him to get a new job and help him in other affairs as well,” the city said.

Last November, a 20-something man started attacking a female store convenience store clerk also in her 20s in Hadae-dong, Jinju. The attacker told the victim that he suspected her to be a feminist, based on her short hair, and said “feminists should be beaten up.”

The victim sustained serious injuries, including permanent impairment of her hearing.

The 50-something man was at the site and tried to stop the attacker, but he too sustained serious injuries to his face and shoulder. He had to quit his job due to the trauma from the incident, and has been suffering from financial hardship since then.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

I don’t know how smashing someone over the head 15 times with a rock is an accident. With that said it appears this kid is a nutjob which was what I suspected when this first was reported:

This image, provided by People Power Party lawmaker Bae Hyun-jin’s office, shows the scene of the attack on her in Seoul on Jan. 25, 2024. (Yonhap)

 The teenage assailant of ruling party lawmaker Bae Hyun-jin has claimed that his attack was accidental, saying he had been waiting to be admitted to a hospital for worsening depression, police officials said Friday.

The 15-year-old boy was detained Thursday afternoon shortly after attacking Bae of the ruling People Power Party with a rock the size of an adult man’s fist in Seoul’s southern district of Gangnam for unclear reasons.

Bae, a television news anchor-turned-lawmaker, was struck on the head 15 times. She was taken to Soonchunhyang University Hospital and had her bleeding wound stapled. She remains hospitalized there.

Police questioned the suspect in the presence of his guardian the previous day, and collected his mobile phone and social media history to determine the exact motive behind the crime.

During the investigation, the suspect told the police that he left home about two hours before the incident, bumped into Bae and accidentally committed the attack, according to police officials.

He reportedly said he had been waiting, at a doctor’s order, to be admitted to a closed psychiatric ward due to a depression relapse.

He also said he was habitually carrying the rock with him.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This was a horrible crime that happened to the woman just trying to do her job at a convenience store:

This image captured from X, also formerly known as Twitter, shows an ongoing campaign in which women with short hair share their photos, which began after a female part-timer in her 20s, who was working at a convenience store, was assaulted by a man in his 20s simply because of her short hair. Captured from X

Should women with short hair be labeled as feminists? And do feminists harm men?

Such questions, which sound a bit peculiar, have been raised in Korea, once again, following a recent incident, in which a female part-timer in her 20s, who was working at a convenience store, was assaulted by a man in his 20s simply because of her short hair. 

The incident immediately led to an online campaign encouraging women with short hair to share their photos under #women_shortcut_campaign.

According to police, the assailant was caught assaulting the part-timer at the convenience store in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, on Saturday. The man also assaulted a male customer in his 50s who was trying to stop the attack.

At the time of the attack, the attacker said to the victim, “You must be a feminist as you have short hair. The feminist should get punished,” according to the police.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Another crazy guy with a mental illness has launched a stabbing attack in South Korea:

A local court issued a warrant Saturday to arrest a man suspected of stabbing a teacher at a high school multiple times.

The Daejeon District Court granted a warrant to formally arrest the suspect in his late 20s on charges of attempted murder, citing the risk of flight.

The man stabbed the teacher, including in the face and chest, at a high school in Daejeon, 139 kilometers south of Seoul on Friday. He was quoted as telling police that he was a student of the teacher in the past, but his claim has yet be verified.

The teacher, 49, underwent urgent surgery after the stabbing, but remains in critical condition.

Police said the suspect was diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression in recent years, but did not receive any treatment.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but with all the media attention these attacks are getting, authorities are worried about copycat attacks now by other mentally ill people.

In the U.S. this crazy guy with a reported mental illness could have gone to Walmart and bought a gun. At least in South Korea the mentally ill can’t purchase a gun to create far larger carnage than what this guy caused with a knife:

A man rammed a car onto a sidewalk Thursday in the South Korean city of Seongnam, then stepped out of the vehicle and began stabbing people at a shopping mall, leaving at least 14 people wounded. 

Just hours after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday called for “ultra-strong” law enforcement measures in response to that attack, police found themselves chasing the suspect in another stabbing incident at a high school in Daejeon city.

Cho Byeong-tae, an official at the Daejeon metropolitan police department, said the attack at Songchon High School left at least one teacher hurt. He did not identify the victim or provide details about the victim’s health. (…..)

Authorities arrested a 22-year-old suspect at the scene and were questioning him. Police did not identify the man or offer any immediate information about a potential motive.

According to Park Gyeong-won, an official at Gyeonggi’s Bundang district police station, the suspect during police interviews talked incoherently and said he was being stalked by an unspecified source. The suspect’s family told police he had a history of mental illness.

Associated Press via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

It seemed like with all the negative publicity it was only a matter of time before this happened:

Belgium will bring home its ambassador to South Korea amid public anger over his wife’s alleged assault of two employees at a shop in Seoul.

The Belgium Embassy said the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sophie Wilmès, decided it was in the best interest of bilateral relations to end Ambassador Peter Lescouhier’s tenure this summer.

He has been the envoy in Seoul for three years. The embassy didn’t provide a specific date on when Lescouhier’s term will end or name a replacement.

While Lescouhier served his country with dedication, “the current situation doesn’t allow him to further carry out his role in a serene way,” the embassy said on Monday.

Euronews via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but her diplomatic immunity has also been partially waived. She can be investigated by the Korean police, but not tried or punishment.

It appears the Vice Justice Minister was given some special treatment by the Korean police:

The National Police Agency issued an apology Monday for misleading the public about the existence of footage capturing Vice Justice Minister Lee Yong-gu allegedly assaulting a taxi driver in November.  

Choi Seung-ryul, acting chief of the police’s newly formed National Investigation Headquarters (NIH), admitted his earlier briefing on Dec. 28 last year suggesting there was no dashboard camera footage of the incident was “partly incorrect.”  

Lee, who was appointed the No. 2 figure at the Justice Ministry in December, has been in the hot seat after opposition politicians claimed police may have let him off the hook for the incident.  

According to police, Lee took a taxi to his home in Seocho-dong in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Nov. 6. He fell asleep in the car, and the driver woke him up when they reached the destination. Lee allegedly hurled insults at the driver and grabbed him by the collar.  

The driver called the police to report an assault, and a unit went to the scene and took his statement.  

The taxi driver reached a settlement with Lee the next day and informed the police that he did not want to press criminal charges. The police closed the case without a criminal investigation.  

But controversy flared up again after media reports surfaced there was in fact footage from the taxi, and that the taxi driver had shown the video in question to a police officer through his mobile phone in a police investigation on Nov. 11.  

The taxi driver claimed the officer watched the approximately 30-second-long video, then said he was going to “pretend [he] never saw” the footage. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but this appears to be another one of those incidents where the cover up was worse than the crime.