Tag: crime

Here is the latest on the Lee Jae-myung stabbing, the criminal who committed the crime may have had an accomplice:

The suspect behind the stabbing attack against opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is seen being escorted to a court on Jan. 4, 2024, for a hearing. (Yonhap)

 Police have detained a man in his 70s for investigation on suspicions of aiding and abetting the suspect in the stabbing attack against opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, officials said Monday.

The Busan Metropolitan Police Agency said the man was put under emergency detention the previous day on suspicions of helping the 67-year-old assailant, identified by his surname Kim, commit the crime, even though he was aware of the attack plan.

Kim stabbed Lee, chairman of the Democratic Party (DP), in the neck with a camping knife in the southeastern city of Busan on Jan. 2. Lee underwent surgery to repair a major vein in his neck and has since been recovering at a hospital in Seoul.

Ahead of the crime, Kim had written an “excuse letter” to explain the motive of his crime and his political beliefs, and the 70-something man agreed to send the letter on Kim’s behalf by mail to an unspecified location, according to police.

Police plan to question him over whether he colluded with Kim in connection with the stabbing attack.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Tsubaki Tower area of Tumon Beach is actually a pretty nice tourism area on the island with some expensive resorts. These criminals must have figured anyone walking down the sidewalk there must of had money on them. Hopefully the Guam authorities catch whoever did this:

Police tape is seen wrapped around a pole in front of Tsubaki Towers in Tamuning, Guam, Jan. 5, after a fatal shooting on the previous day. AP-Yonhap

The authorities in the U.S. territory of Guam vowed Friday to bring to justice those who fatally shot a Korean visitor in a tourist district.

The shooting occurred shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday when the traveler and his wife were walking toward Tsubaki Towers, a hotel on Guam’s popular Tumon Bay, from nearby Gun Beach, KUAM-TV reported, citing police.

An older model, dark-colored SUV approached them from behind, Guam Police Chief Stephen Ignacio said at a news conference.

A passenger holding a gun got of the vehicle and demanded they hand over their belongings, Ignacio said, adding, “A struggle ensued.”

The victim was taken to Guam Regional Medical City, where he died from his injuries the next morning. He had been visiting Guam while celebrating his retirement.

The Guam Visitors Bureau has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This guy is lucky to be alive and will likely be spending some time in jail for surviving this fall:

An inflatable jump bag is set up in front of an apartment building in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang, on Monday after a man started engaging in a standoff while holding his ex-girlfriend hostage at knifepoint. [NEWS1]

A man in his 20s, who had been holding his ex-girlfriend hostage at knifepoint on Monday, jumped off an apartment building from a staircase between the sixth and seventh floors of the building. 
  
According to South Gyeongsang police, the incident took place in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang, at around 2 p.m. 
  
The man engaged in a four-hour standoff with the police before jumping from the building.

He struck an exterior structure of the apartment on the third floor before landing on an air mattress laid on the first floor. 
  
He was taken to a hospital by first responders. 
  
The police said that the man was undergoing court proceedings for stalking his ex-girlfriend.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This arrest makes me wonder how many countries and how long these thieves have been pickpocketing people?:

Police arrest three Russian nationals suspected of pickpocketing at a subway station in Myeong-dong, central Seoul, on Nov.13. [SEOUL METROPOLITAN POLICE AGENCY]

Prosecutors on Thursday indicted three Russian nationals suspected of pickpocketing subway riders for two weeks in Seoul, their office said Monday. 
  
The three Russian nationals, comprising two men aged 45 and a woman aged 38, entered Korea on a tourist visa on Nov. 1. 
  
The police said the three individuals focused on finding victims among subway riders during rush hour.

They mainly targeted women with handbags, approaching them in a coordinated manner, with one person standing in front of the victim to impede movement while another created distraction among the surrounding crowd so that the third person could pick up the victim’s purse. 
  
The three-member group was apprehended by the police on Nov. 13 who were on a stakeout. 
  
Authorities found that the three had collectively spent 45 hours riding the subway over nine days since their arrival in Seoul. 
  
The police estimated that the three stole a total of 7.13 million won ($5,400), including 5.6 million won in cash, in addition to three mobile phones.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Guys like this need a swift death penalty for such a brutal crime:

Choi Yun-jong, the suspect behind the rape and murder of a woman in Seoul’s Sillim neighborhood, speaks to reporters at the Seoul Gwanak Police Station, in this file photo taken Aug. 25, 2023. (Yonhap)

Prosecutors on Monday demanded the death penalty for a 30-year-old suspect behind the attempted rape and killing of a woman on a hiking trail in southern Seoul.

Choi Yun-jong was indicted on charges of fatally beating, throttling and attempting to rape the victim he randomly picked on a hillside hiking trail in the Sillim neighborhood on Aug. 17.

In the final hearing at Seoul Central District Court, prosecutors demanded the death penalty for Choi, arguing that he poses a high risk to society if released without any sign of repentance.

Prosecutors also stressed that he caused irrevocable damage to the family members of the victim and said there is a need to show that anyone who causes such crime would face heavy punishment.

The victim, an elementary school teacher in her 30s, had been left unaided for around 20 minutes before being found by the police and moved to a hospital. She died two days later due to brain damage caused by the strangulation.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this news of an assault of a Korean woman in Sydney by two Australian teenage women:

Disturbing footage shows the moment a teenager brutally attacked a young Korean woman in Sydney in the early hours of Sunday morning. 

According to Instagram account ‘degeneratehunting’, which uploaded the footage, the Korean woman and her friend were walking back to their hotel when they were approached by two teenagers near Town Hall in the city’s CBD. 

The women, who are from Melbourne and aged 23 and 32, “suddenly passed a group of young teenagers slurring racist remarks and threats towards them”. 

“The teenagers then turned from their direction of travel and began following the two Korean girls, bringing one of them to start recording for self defence,” the post read.

Footage shows the Korean woman in a tussle with one of the teenagers on the street before she is dragged to the floor and struck multiple times. 

The woman manages to get to her feet briefly before she is dragged back down again and kicked and continuously struck in her head.

News.com.au

You can see the video at the link, but both of the women who assaulted the Korean tourist have been identified and arrested by police.

Just when you thought you had heard it all then you read this:

Former Olympic medalist Nam Hyun-hee said Thursday that she had been deceived by Jeon Cheong-jo, who was engaged to the 42-year-old fencer before being revealed as a con artist.

Nam, who became the first South Korean woman to win a fencing Olympic medal by winning silver in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, said in a media interview that she learned Wednesday that her boyfriend had swindled money from her acquaintances.

She said Jeon instigated everything in their relationship, including their marriage, and even tricked her into believing that she was pregnant.

Jeon supposedly showed her positive pregnancy tests, despite this being impossible as he was transgender.

In a subsequent interview with local media, Nam said that she had known that Jeon had had sex reassignment surgery. When asked why she thought she could get impregnated by a transgender man, who cannot produce sperm, Nam said she “thought it was strange.”

Korea Herald

Keep reading at the link because it keeps getting stranger.

The Korea Herald has a long article about violence against women in Korea. In the article there is an idea on making people accused of stalking wear police issued GPS bracelets. This would allow the person they are stalking to know where that person is. This is an interesting idea, but I would like to see the safeguards on how abuse of making people wear GPS bracelets would be prevented:

Still images from CCTV footage show a man violently attacking a woman in Busan in May 2022. (Courtesy of JTBC)

In a bid to take a more systemic approach, South Korea is working to determine what behaviors constitute an abusive pattern in offenders, and how to adequately train judges, court staff, police officers and other support organizations to identify the risk factors and protections needed.

There is also room for improvement when it comes to the efficacy of temporary restraining orders in deterring offenders from making contact with victims. There have been repeated calls, including from the unnamed victim of the roundhouse kick incident to allow police to use GPS tracking devices on both gender-based crime and stalking offenders and their victims. Under the current system, only victims are able to use the devices to alert police in an emergency, and these devices cannot detect the location of the offenders automatically.

Korea Herald

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.