The Myth of GI Crimes Continues
This crap in the Chosun Ilbo is incredible. Anybody think this is true:
No U.S. Soldiers Held in Hundreds of Crimes
U.S. troops stationed in Korea were reportedly involved in 780 criminal acts, three of them homicides, between 2000 and August 2005, yet not a single one of them has been brought to book here, Seoul Metropolitan Police data show. Statistics announced on Monday by Democratic Labor Party lawmaker Lee Young-soon during an audit of the police show U.S. Forces Korea personnel implicated in three murders, 19 robberies, 149 thefts and other illegal activities, but none were in police custody.
(…)
“Police do not even start questioning suspects before they are officially handed over to the U.S. because they claim there are no interpreters, while U.S. representatives are only concerned with taking custody of the suspect rather than to cooperating with the investigation,†Lee said. She urged police to be aware of SOFA guidelines on dealing with suspects and take a more active part in the initial investigation. Lee proposed creating a department that would handle all USFK-related business and boost police personnel in areas where U.S. forces are concentrated and crimes are frequent.
Where do I begin on this one? First of all, if the Korean police have custody of a soldier especially for homicide why do they hand the soldier over to the MPs to begin with? Secondly, I would like to see proof of these alleged homicides that were never prosecuted because there are plenty of soldiers in ROK jail now for homicides and manslaughter. Maybe they were handed over because there was not enough evidence and they were innocent? GI’s aren’t guilty for all the murders in Korea despite what some would like you to believe.
Thirdly, in regards to all the thefts, often if a GI for examples steals a laptop out of some juicy club in the ville and gets reported, the Korean police will contact the MPs to handle the case. The MPs will then find the soldier, locate the property, and return the property to the owner. The Korean police than let the military keep jurisdiction on the case and conduct military justice on the soldier because it is less work for the Korean police to do. They got more important things to do like sleep in their cars.
This is the same procedure the Korean police use for many low level crimes that GIs commit. Here is another example for you I have seen happen in the past, a soldier getting picked up for urinating on the side of a building. The Korean police let the US military handle these things. However the Korean police have initial jurisdiction to handle these cases due to the SOFA agreement. This is getting to the point that maybe USFK should make the police do their jobs so crap like this doesn’t get printed. Make them write up every soldier caught urinating on a building instead of sleeping in their patrol cars.
In regards to parking tickets I have no experience with this since I’m in 2ID and we can’t drive maybe Mark can provide some insight into that, but it is probably BS like the rest of this article.
Maybe I should start tallying a list of unreported Korean crimes and demand a change to the SOFA agreement to allow the MPs to take custody of these people. Just imagine how large my list would be if we reported every taxi driver that tries to rip off soldiers. A criminal activity that would really make the statistics go through the roof would be to tally every time a soldier is offered a prostitute. That’s a crime right? What about selling alcohol to minors? I could easily manipulate a statistic to push an agenda and that is what this whole article is about, pushing an agenda that GI’s are criminals. I’m not buying it, but unfortunately many Korean people are.
