The KNPA has recently ended a 100 day crackdown on foreigner crime:
Police arrested 800 foreigners from July to October who were involved in 348 crimes. / Korea Times file
Police booked more than 800 foreigners for allegedly committing crimes during a special 100-day crackdown from July 4.
The National Police Agency said Tuesday 803 foreigners involved in 348 cases were booked and 136 were arrested in the period.
By crime type, violent crime (67 percent) led the way, followed by narcotics (24 percent), sexual violence (5 percent) and gambling (4 percent).
For violent crime, 189 cases (80 percent) occurred among foreigners and 83 percent among compatriots. Police said most criminals who assaulted people were drunk. [Korea Times]
Here is a really odd story of a gunfight in Seoul with a criminal using six homemade guns. This just goes to show that if a criminal really wants a gun they can get one:
A police officer was killed in a gunfight with a criminal suspect in northern Seoul and the suspect involved in the shooting has been apprehended, law enforcement authorities said Wednesday.
In the gunfight that began at around 6:30 p.m. in front of a tunnel near Beon-dong in northern Seoul, the 45-year-old suspect, identified only by his family name Seong, opened fire with a privately manufactured gun, according to the police.
The police responded to a report that the suspect had attacked his neighbor with a blunt object. He ran into the tunnel after he spotted the police and was carrying six guns, all made of wood, when he was apprehended, a police officer said.
The suspect is presumed to have made the wooden guns based on manufacturing methods available from the Internet.
The suspect cut off an electronic monitoring bracelet that he was wearing due to previous involvement in a sexual offense before he began to run towards the tunnel, the officer said.
A police officer, 54, was shot in the gunfight and was rushed to the hospital for treatment, but died during surgery. The neighbor who was attacked, who also turns out to be the suspect’s landlord, is undergoing treatment for his wounds.
The landlord and the tenant were engaged in an argument before he became violent. The police have begun an investigation into what caused the verbal fight. [Yonhap via a reader tip]
The police on Jeju have launched a crackdown on Chinese tourists due to them committing 95% of petty crime by foreigners on Jeju island:
A female owner of a restaurant in Yeon-dong, Jeju, lies face-up on the ground (indicated by red circle) on Sept. 9 after she was assaulted by eight Chinese tourists, who refused to pay for their food after the owner told them not to bring in alcohol from outside the restaurant. [JEJU WESTERN DISTRICT POLICE PRECINCT]In downtown Jeju on Sunday night, booming sounds echoed down the streets as three drunken Chinese men pounded on a video arcade in front of a game room. A few passing women were so startled they let out shouts of surprise, but the men only kept on whooping loudly.
“After a Korean woman was murdered in a cathedral in Jeju,” said Park Soo-jung, a 32-year-old resident of Jeju, “seeing big Chinese men scares me.”
On Sept. 22 in Yeon-dong of Jeju, an area often crowded with Chinese visitors, police officers tried to prevent two Chinese tourists from jaywalking.
“Do not jaywalk!” the officers called out to them in Mandarin Chinese.
One of them, a 42-year-old Chinese man surnamed Ma, reportedly answered, “Why are you picking on us when everyone else is jaywalking?”
Ma was charged 20,000 won ($18.26) for breaking the law. He was just one of about 40 found jaywalking within two hours in downtown Jeju.
“After the cathedral incident, we’ve heightened the crackdown against crimes committed by Chinese tourists,” said Kim Chang-hyun, head of a local police team in Jeju. “Once the sun sets, I start worrying what kind of crimes committed by Chinese tourists I’ll be seeing that night.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
This is just a horrible story coming out of Pocheon, north of Seoul:
A middle-aged couple was arrested Sunday for allegedly binding their 6-year-old adopted daughter with duct tape for 17 hours and, when she suffocated, burning her body on a mountain.
The couple denied intentionally killing the girl and said she was being punished for being “too gluttonous.”
Police requested a pre-trial detention warrant Monday for the 47-year-old man and his 30-year-old wife on charges of murder, physical abuse, as well as the mutilation and abandonment of a dead body.
A 19-year-old woman living with the couple in Pocheon, Gyeonggi, was also apprehended on the same charges. Police identified the teenager as a daughter of the father’s close friend, who allegedly took some – if not equal – part in the crime.
The three suspects said during police questioning that they habitually struck the child with their bare hands or a fly swatter because she didn’t obey orders.
Last Wednesday night, they allegedly bound the girl up with duct tape and left home, returning 17 hours later to find her struggling to breathe.
The adoptive mother claimed she performed CPR on the child before she took her last breath. The three moved the body to the couple’s car Friday and drove to a nearby mountain. They allegedly burned the body to hide the evidence. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more of the details at the link, to include how the police determined the adopted parents killed the girl.
I wonder if this would be like the joint patrols the US military and the ROK police conduct near US military bases?:
South Korea and China will discuss the possibility of stationing Chinese police officials on its southern island of Jeju if the relevant authorities here consider it necessary, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Thursday.
The idea was raised by a South Korean opposition lawmaker earlier this week amid an increase in crimes by Chinese tourists on the popular resort island.
“The issue of stationing Chinese police (on Jeju) will be actively discussed with China after talks with our relevant departments, including the police, and if they so wish,” the ministry said. “Even if the Chinese police are stationed here, they would not be involved in our public safety activities, but only work with us in terms of sharing information on criminals and cooperating on safety issues.” [Yonhap]
Maybe the ROK is taking the approach President Duerte takes for drug dealers and applying it to Chinese fishermen who continue to plague the country’s waters:
Three Chinese fishermen were killed on Thursday in a fire that broke out on their boat when South Korean coastguard men trying to apprehend them for illegal fishing threw flash grenades into a room they were hiding in, a South Korean official said.
Disputes over illegal fishing are an irritant in relations between China and U.S. ally South Korea, even as their economic relations grow close. They also share concern about North Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile programs.
The three men were believed to have suffocated, a coastguard official in the South Korean port city of Mokpo said, adding that the incident was being investigated.
The fire broke out in the boat’s steering room, the official, who is not authorized to speak with media and declined to be identified, told Reuters by telephone.
South Korean authorities were questioning the 14 surviving crew and coastguard members involved in the operation, the official added.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it had lodged a protest with Seoul about the incident.
Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing Beijing was also urging South Korea to hold a “comprehensive and objective” investigation into the incident, along with China. [Reuters via reader tip]
You can read more at the link, but definitely compared to the past where these fishermen having actually murdered Korean Coast Guard personnel it is clear ROK authorities have taken a more aggressive stance to stop them.
There is a lesson to be learned here, don’t except drinks from strange people you just met:
Police have arrested a man for allegedly drugging a Uzbekistani women and dragging her to a Busan motel to rob her.
Police said that on Sept 13, the man, surnamed Kang, 35, approached the victim at a bus station in Oncheon-dong. He had a vending machine coffee that contained zolpidem, a sedative primarily used for insomnia.
He introduced himself to the woman as a Japanese living in Korea. Kang told police he talked with her for about an hour before giving her the coffee. After the woman fell asleep, he dragged her to a nearby hotel and stole her belongings, including a gold bracelet, police said.
Kang also allegedly stole about 10 million won ($9,060) from 12 other victims using a similar method.
Police arrested Kang at a motel in the area after going through security camera footage. [Korea Times]
This crazy leftist should be happy he only received 12 years for his attempted murder of US Ambassador Mark Lippert:
The Korean man who attacked U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert with a knife last year was sentenced to 12 years in prison for attempted murder by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The top court convicted 56-year-old Kim Ki-jong, who slashed the ambassador with a knife during a forum in Seoul on March 5, 2015, for attempted murder, assaulting a foreign envoy and obstruction of duty.
“It is appropriate to uphold the lower court ruling that though it was not completed, he had the intention to murder,” the court said, “taking into consideration the details of the crime and his motive, weapon of choice, the size of the knife and usage, magnitude of the attack, as well as the area attacked and its repetitiveness.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Here is an update in regards to one of the recent stories of senior military officers getting themselves in serious trouble. This was the case that was going to be interesting going to trial because his lawyer was using the defense that the adultery regulation in the UCMJ is unfair because it only applies to heterosexual couples. It would have been interesting to see how that defense would have played out which now we will never know:
Colorado Springs police Sgt. Tim Stanke says officers responded to a report of a suicide when they found the body of Col. Eugene Caughey on Sunday. Stanke says police are awaiting autopsy results.
The 46-year-old Caughey had been vice commander of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base outside Colorado Springs. The unit operates key military satellite systems.
Caughey was charged with adultery, indecent filming or photography, dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer.
Caughey is accused of raping a woman at Schriever Air Force Base, also in Colorado, in late 2014 or early 2015 while “holding her against the wall and floor using physical strength or violence,” court documents stated.
Prosecutors also accused him of photographing his exposed genitals while in uniform and groping women twice.
His court-martial was scheduled for Oct. 17. [CBS News]
With all the recent major crimes being committed on Jeju island some resident want to see the visa waiver program ended to better ensure public safety:
In line with the rise, the number of foreign tourists who commit crimes at one of the country’s most popular tourist sites has also increased.
The Jeju Provincial Police Agency said 347 foreign offenders have been arrested on Jeju as of July. The figure is up by nearly 60 percent from the number tallied in the same period last year, which stood at 218.
Among the 347 foreigners, Chinese nationals accounted for the largest proportion of offenders with 240, or 69.2 percent, followed by Americans with 13.
Reflecting such trends, calls to beef up security by local residents have been rising.
More than 14,500 people have signed a petition filed at a bulletin board of local Internet portal Daum as of Tuesday since it was first proposed on Sunday.
“The country’s precious island of Jeju has turned into a lawless zone with Chinese tourists who enter without visas,” the netizen who first proposed the petition said. “The safety of South Koreans should be given top priority than what can be earned from tourism.” [Yonhap]
![A female owner of a restaurant in Yeon-dong, Jeju, lies face-up on the ground (indicated by red circle) on Sept. 9 after she was assaulted by eight Chinese tourists, who refused to pay for their food after the owner told them not to bring in alcohol from outside the restaurant. [JEJU WESTERN DISTRICT POLICE PRECINCT]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/jmnet/koreajoongangdaily/_data/photo/2016/10/04202501.jpg?resize=610%2C379)
