Tag: crime

More bad media attention for the ROK military:

A medical non-commissioned officer surnamed Lee, 24, was arrested for allegedly stabbing a female officer while drunk. The event occurred on Aug. 5, after he got into a quarrel with his colleagues.

“The victim got neural damages in her thigh due to the incident,” said an official from the Armed Forces Medical Command on Friday. “She is currently being treated in a private hospital.”

Around 10 officers from the Korean Armed Forces Hongcheon Hospital in Hongcheon County, Gangwon, gathered on Aug. 5 for dinner and drinks. The conflict began when Lee was reprimanded for his rudeness by another non-commissioned officer with a lower rank, according to police.

“It seems like Lee felt disrespected that someone with a lower rank scolded him,” said a military official.

After dinner, the party moved on to a noraebang (karaoke room). Lee, who had left for home around midnight, also showed up, holding a knife, police later said. Lee brandished his knife and moved toward the non-commissioned officer he had quarreled with, the report noted, who then ran away with wounds to his stomach.

Police also said the female officer, running into Lee on her way back from the washroom, was stabbed in several places including her thigh.

The chaos was concluded when a civilian military worker inside the noraebang venue subdued Lee. Police arrested Lee for bodily harm and handed him over to the military police.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Here is a horrible story about the decapitation of a 25 year old woman in Siheung, Gyeongi province by her own family that claimed that she was possessed by an evil spirit:

On Friday at around 6:30 a.m., the mother, son and daughter were in their living room, having spent the whole night awake chatting, said police. The son is 26 years old and works for a company. The daughter was 25 and unemployed.

The suspects claimed they had eaten nothing for four days, without saying why.

Tension escalated swiftly when their poodle, which they have had for five years, started barking loudly for no reason, the mother claimed.

Assuming it was possessed by a demon, the three took turns stabbing the dog with a knife and striking it with a baseball bat, eventually killing it.

When the three moved to a bathroom to clean up, the daughter’s hands started shaking. She moved toward the mother as if to strangle her, said the son. Thinking that the demon had exited the poodle and taken over the daughter, the mother and son forced her to lie down on the bathroom floor.

The mother stabbed her daughter’s neck with a kitchen knife, while the son beat his sister’s midriff and head with a hammer. Autopsy results indicated that the victim died due to neck and head injuries.

The son called his father, a 54-year-old shoe repairman who was working at the time, to confess the murder. The father called the police hours later and told them the suspects would turn themselves in.

When police arrived at the scene, the victim’s head was found detached from her body. Police are investigating when that occurred.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if drugs or alcohol were not involved in this in some way.

Here is a horrible story of murderous firefighter in Anseong:

A 50-year-old firefighter was arrested on Wednesday after attempting to rob a house to pay back his gambling debts, only to be caught by the two homeowners, who he then murdered before burning their house to cover his tracks.

According to the police in Anseong, Gyeonggi, the firefighter broke into a two-story house located around Dangwang-dong, Anseong, at around 3 p.m. on Aug. 1, where a 64-year-old man and his 57-year-old wife were living.

The firefighter was not listed as a usual suspect by police at the time, but his crimes were revealed when he attempted to commit suicide by drinking herbicide and throwing himself off from the rooftop of an apartment at around 4:50 p.m on Wednesday.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible story out of Wonju:

A 75-year-old woman in Wonju, Gangwon, was arrested for allegedly killing her husband of 56 years with a hammer.

The suspect admitted the crime, according to police, saying she couldn’t stand her husband’s verbal and physical abuse any longer.

Wonju police filed a pre-trial detention warrant for the suspect. A local court will review it as early as today.

The alleged murder took place around 6 a.m. Wednesday, police said, after the 74-year-old victim fell off a chair while changing a lightbulb in a bathroom in the couple’s house.

The suspect heard a loud thump and went to check on her husband, and he allegedly berated her, saying, “It’s all because of you!” The woman told police during questioning that her husband’s head was bleeding and his eyes had rolled back.

The wife said she feared he would have to be hospitalized for a long period, which might prove expensive. She said she didn’t want to have to be his caregiver.

“I’ve put up with him all my life,” she said according to police. “I have even had to go to the hospital several times after he hit me.”

She left the bathroom, found a hammer and returned to finish him off. Autopsy results indicated she had hit him in about 20 different areas all over his body, including his face and neck. The direct cause of the victim’s death was “multiple injuries.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

What a jerk this ajushi is:

A mom with a 7-month-old baby was slapped in the face after she asked a man in 50s to “put out a cigarette” in a no smoking area.

Seoul Seobu Police said Saturday that a man in his 50s was accused of slapping a mom in the face while she was pushing a stroller carrying her baby.

According to the police, the man was smoking at around 5 p.m. on July 30, near the entrance of Eungam Station in Seoul, when the woman asked him to put out his cigarette or go elsewhere.

They were caught on CCTV, with the man following the woman and slapping her on the face while she tried to cross the street at a crosswalk with a stroller, the police said.   [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like an area of the UCMJ that will need to be updated is to include same-sex prostitution as a crime.  This reminds of the Air Force colonel trying to get his adultery charges dropped because the UCMJ does not include same-sex adultery as a crime:

An Army medic charged with murder in connection with the stabbing death of his wife was sentenced Saturday in military court to 27 months in federal prison and a dishonorable discharge for possession of child pornography and soliciting others to engage in sex for money.

Sgt. Michael Walker, who was assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center, pleaded guilty Saturday to three counts of solicitation and not guilty to one count of possession of child pornography before a military judge at Wheeler Army Airfield’s courtroom.  (…………)

Walker, who has been in the military for 12 years, was charged with solicitation instead of prostitution because the Uniform Code of Military Justice, under which Walker was found guilty, defines prostitution as between a man and a woman.

In his court-martial, Walker admitted to placing two ads in September 2014, seeking people to have sex with in exchange for money. He said in the ads that he was looking for “generous men to spend time with” or “looking to have some fun.”

In court, he said, “My purpose was to find people to have sex with and at the same time to give me money.”

Walker said he met with three men that fall and had sex with them for money on multiple occasions. He said one man paid him $400 for an encounter.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read much more at the link, but this guy still faces even more time in jail when his murder trial comes up.

I have never heard of an military arms rooms getting broken into.  Considering the security that goes with an arms room I think this has to be an inside job by someone who had access to the arms room.  Has any ROK Heads ever heard of an arms room getting broken into?:

Special agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command are investigating the theft of guns and other military equipment from a base arms room in Stuttgart, military officials said.

“Several semi-automatic pistols, one small-caliber automatic rifle and a shotgun were among the items taken,” said Chris Grey, a CID spokesman.

The Army did not identify all the items stolen or the unit targeted, citing the active investigation. A possible breach of the base fence is also part of the ongoing probe.

“We are looking at all possibilities as the investigation continues, but at this point in the investigation it does not appear that an outside entity stole the firearms and equipment or breached the fence line, but we have not completely ruled it out,” Grey said.  [Stars & Stripes]

I would think the first person to ask what happened would be the unit armorer who has the code to enter into the arms room.  For example did he give the code out to someone else that wasn’t authorized to open the arms room?

Here we go again with another group of North Korean soldiers pillaging a Chinese town.  This is not the first time this has happened and likely won’t be the last:

Five North Korean soldiers who deserted their posts with weapons engaged in a shootout with Chinese authorities on Thursday after armed robberies in Jilin Province, according to diplomatic sources.

The soldiers entered China through Hyesan city in North Korea on July 23 and committed an armed robbery in Changbai Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province.

As the robbery spree intensified, the Chinese army and police formed a task force to catch the soldiers and a major shoot out ensued in a town inside the prefecture on Thursday.

Two of the soldiers were arrested but many of the Chinese were injured. Two Chinese police officers were rushed to a nearby hospital in a critical condition.

Chinese authorities have launched a manhunt for the three remaining soldiers.

“Authorities have issued a curfew to local residents until they arrest all the culprits,” a diplomatic source said. [Korea Times]

Fortunately no one has been killed yet by these thugs unlike what happened in 2014 when a rampaging North Korean soldier killed four elderly Chinese citizens.

It looks like the US Army has found themselves four more volunteers for the drawdown:

Four soldiers from Fort Carson are in custody after a home invasion.

Police said there was a disturbance involving four suspects, one of whom was armed with a gun, at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the 1100-block of Verde Drive in Colorado Springs.

“The suspect with the gun threatened to shot [sic] the family and was demanding property from the victims,” Colorado Springs police said. “After the victims refused to provide the property the suspects left, and threatened to return.”

Instead, police said, the suspects turned themselves in at around 11:30 p.m. Sunday. Dustin Mincy, Mykal Hall, Aaron Hall, Roman Alred were arrested on suspicion of burglary, felony menacing and child abuse, police said.

The family of four, including two small children, were not injured, police said.  [Channel 7 News]

I would not be surprised if there is more to this story considering they turned themselves in right after committing the home invasion.

Via a reader tip comes this horrible story out of Japan where once again the mass killer had a history of mental trouble:

Nineteen residents have been killed in a knife attack at a care centre for people with mental disabilities in the Japanese city of Sagamihara.

Such attacks are extremely rare in Japan – the incident is the worst mass killing in decades.

Police have arrested a man who worked at the centre until February, and who turned himself into police after the attack.

He reportedly said he wanted people with disabilities to “disappear”.

The brutal killings have shocked Japan, one of the safest countries in the world.

The suspect has been named as 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu.

He sent letters to politicians in February in which he threatened to kill hundreds of disabled people during a night shift, Kyodo news agency reports.

“My goal is a world in which the severely disabled can be euthanised, with their guardians’ consent, if they are unable to live at home and be active in society,” Uematsu wrote in a letter to the speaker of the lower house of parliament, obtained by Kyodo.

He was kept in hospital for almost two weeks before being released.  [BBC]

You can read more at the link, but along with mental health the other thing that causes these mass killings that few talk about to include the BBC is the glorification in the media that allows these killers to act out their fantasies.  I do like how the BBC did find space to throw this line into the article though:

Mass killings are extremely rare in Japan, in part because strict gun control laws means almost no-one has access to a firearm.