Tag: assault

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.

Another member of the Moon administration gets away with committing a crime:

 Police are looking into past cases that are similar to the new vice justice minister’s unpunished assault against a taxi driver to determine whether officers took appropriate steps at the time of the incident, a police official said Monday.

Vice Justice Minister Lee Yong-gu has come under fire after it was reported late last week that he got away free following the altercation in early November. 

Lee, who was a lawyer at the time, allegedly grabbed the driver by the collar in an intoxicated state when the man tried to wake him up after arriving at his home in southern Seoul. He was appointed vice minister on Dec. 2. 

“We will once again thoroughly review legal precedents with the help of former jurists, lawyers and senior officials who handled the case at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency,” the official said.

The Seocho Police Station, which has jurisdiction over Lee’s neighborhood, applied charges of assault, a crime not punishable against will, not the heavier charges that apply to assault against a driver in motion.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but can you imagine the reaction if it was a drunk USFK service member that assaulted a cab driver

Cho Hyun-ah just can’t stay out of the news:

Former Korean Air vice president and “nut rage” heiress Cho Hyun-ah was fined 30 million won ($2,460) for assaulting her husband but cleared of abusing her twin children by throwing a spoon at them and verbally abusing them.

Judge In Jin-sup made the ruling recently, the Seoul Central District Court said on Thursday.

While it’s not yet known if Cho will appeal, her husband, surnamed Kim, has appealed, arguing the court’s decision on the child abuse was wrong. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but she supposedly tried to choke the husband and then threw a Tablet PC at him.