Category: crime & punishment

After reading stories about how Korean police ignore crimes against foreigners by Korean men, it is good to see that at least this guy was arrested:

A Korean man in his 30s, surnamed Kim, has been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a Japanese tourist he met at a nightclub in Gangnam, Seoul, according to Gangnam police station on Monday.

The tourist in her 20s reportedly visited the club with a friend and met Kim.

Kim allegedly sexually assaulted her after taking her to an emergency stairway.

He was stopped when security guards came to rescue the woman after hearing her scream.

“We heard a woman screaming and crying, so we sent our security personnel outside to check,” a club employee said. “We intervened and subdued the man until the police arrived.”

Kim denied the sexual assault charges, saying his interaction with the woman was with consent, police said.  [The Korea Times]

It does seem the Korean authorities are taking sex crimes against foreign women more seriously.  It wasn’t that long ago when this was not the case.

Via a reader tip comes news of this horrible attack that some are now trying to use to further the narrative that Korean men have a misogyny and problem with violently attacking women:

The 22-year-old South Korean man in a black T-shirt asked one question of the young woman before bludgeoning her repeatedly with a hammer.

“Are you Korean?”

Much about the random attack last Friday at a Koreatown strip mall remains unclear, but police said Thursday one thing seemed apparent: Jae Won Yang chose his victim because she was Korean, and a woman.

Last week’s attack, in front of a second-floor acupuncture clinic, has reverberated across the Pacific Ocean to rattle nerves and grab headlines in South Korea. The incident set off online debates about whether it was the latest in violent attacks against women in recent years that have triggered soul-searching about misogyny in the Asian nation.  [LA Times]

You can read and see the video of the attack at the link.

Here are my thoughts on this, if people want to debate misogyny and violence against women in Korea fine, but don’t twist incidents to prove the point.  For example the big incident that has been used recently to “prove” this point was the violent murder of a woman in the Gangnam district of Seoul last year.  However, what the activists pushing this narrative do not mention is that the Gangman murderer for years was in and out of mental hospitals and became homeless because his family could no longer handle caring for him due to his mental illness.  The guy was certifiably crazy, not a misogynist.

This guy with the hammer attack we don’t know what his motive is yet.  Maybe he hates Korean women and decided to just randomly attack one with a hammer.  If so then the activists have their case they can champion to prove their point.  However, maybe this guy is someone else with a background of mental illness.  This statement in the article seems to suggest that:

Kim, who met with Yang after his arrest, said the man was rambling and nonsensical about the motive behind the attack. He does not speak any English, Kim said.

I am sure that as more facts come out this guy’s motive will become more clear, but in the meantime instead making unsubstantiated claims of misogyny lets all hope the victim of this horrible attack is able to make a speedy recovery.

This story of a Columbian man assaulted by a Korean man at a Busan Costco just continues to confirm my long held advice that foreigners need to swallow their pride and walk away from confrontations with Koreans.  This is because the odds are high that the police will side with the Korean and that the foreigner will end up being the one arrested which is what happened in this case.

To summarize a Columbian man and his Korean wife were walking back to their car at the Busan Costco when the Korean wife yelled loudly for a car to stop which saves the life of little kid who can in front of it. The grandpa of the little kid gets angry at the Korean wife for yelling at the kid and then eventually tries to assault her.  However Columbian husband gets in front of him to stop the assault and the grandpa pushes the Columbian to the ground and begins to punch him.  While this is going on he is yelling racist remarks the whole time. The assault is caught on camera and yet the police side with the Korean grandpa who is lying and yelling racist remarks the whole time.  The police arrest the Columbian man and say this can all go away if he does not pursue the assault charge on the Korean man.  The charges are dropped after the Columbian man agrees to not pursue the case against the grandpa and everyone goes home.

The best thing the Columbian man did was not to try and fight back despite being pushed to the ground and having the Korean man on top of him punching him.  In Korea you do not have the right to self defense like people in the United States for example may be use to having.  If he would have punched the guy back he would likely be in jail for assault.  What he was not smart about was trying to pursue the assault charge against the Korean man.  He should have just left after the assault was broken up because the odds of the police siding with a foreigner are very low.  This is where the swallowing your pride and walking away is the best thing to do.  It lets the Korean man save face while the foreigner doesn’t have to worry about getting arrested.

Once Park Geun-hye was impeached it was only a matter of time before this happened:

Former President Park Geun-hye was arrested on Friday in connection with a corruption scandal that led to her removal from office.

The Seoul Central District Court issued a warrant to detain Park on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion and leaking government secrets, after a marathon hearing the previous day.

“The need for her arrest is acknowledged because there is probable cause to charge her and a concern of evidence being destroyed,” Judge Kang Boo-young said.

Park, ousted in a historic ruling on March 10, became the country’s third former president to be arrested over criminal allegations, following Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan.

Following the decision, Park was transferred to a detention center south of Seoul from the prosecution’s office where she had been waiting for the result after the nearly nine-hour court hearing.

The detention center is where key figures embroiled in the scandal, including Park’s longtime friend Choi Soon-sil and Samsung’s de facto leader Lee Jae-yong, are held in custody.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this absolutely horrible murder over in Incheon:

A 17-year-old girl has been arrested for the killing and dismembering of an 8-year-old girl in Incheon. The remains were put into two plastic bags and left on the roof of an apartment building where the suspect lives, the Yeonsu Police Precinct reported Thursday.

The teenager, who dropped out of school and suffers from depression, allegedly committed the act Wednesday afternoon after luring the victim to her apartment in Yeonsu District, western Incheon.

According to police, the victim lived in a different building in the same apartment complex.

The suspect, whose identity is being withheld, met the victim at around 1 p.m. at a playground in the Yeonsu neighborhood. The two had not known each other, according to police. The victim’s friend told investigators the victim asked the suspect if she could borrow her mobile phone to call her mother.

CCTV footage showed the two taking an elevator at around 1 p.m. to go to the suspect’s home. Two hours later, the suspect left the home and later returned. At 4:09 p.m., the suspect left again after changing her clothes. It is believed that the murder took place between 1 and 4 p.m. The suspect’s parents were at work at the time.

Inside the suspect’s home were blood stains and tools that might have been used in the killing. Police declined to go into detail out of respect for the victim’s parents.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

I have yet to see any solid evidence that former President Park was trying to shake down people for money like her friend Choi Soon-shil was apparently doing.  Despite the lack of evidence it is pretty clear that the Korean left just wants to see Park dragged into a courtroom.  I guess we will see what happens, maybe the prosecutors have some hard evidence they have not released:

South Korean prosecutors said Monday they will request an arrest warrant for former President Park Geun-hye over a string of corruption allegations that led to her removal from office.

Park faces charges of bribery, abuse of power, coercion and leaking government secrets in connection with a scandal involving her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil.

Park went through a marathon interrogation over the suspicions last week after the Constitutional Court upheld the National Assembly’s decision to dismiss her on March 10.

If the Seoul Central District Court issues the warrant, Park will become the country’s third former president to be arrested for criminal allegations following Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan.  [Yonhap]

It seems the US Embassy is punishing Kang Jung-ho more than the Korean justice system is willing to do after his third DUI conviction:

Pittsburgh Pirates’ third baseman Kang Jung-ho has been denied a U.S. work visa following a recent DUI conviction, a source close to the matter told Yonhap News Agency Saturday, casting further doubt on his status for the 2017 major league season.

The source confirmed a report on Friday by the local network KBS that the U.S. Embassy in Seoul recently rejected Kang’s application for a visa to enter the country. The news came exactly three weeks after Kang received an eight-month sentence, which was suspended for two years, for leaving the scene of a DUI accident in Seoul last December. It was his third DUI arrest in South Korea and his driver’s license has been revoked.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but if he is not allowed to enter the US to play, Kang would assuredly be on the hook to lose millions of dollars from his Major League Baseball contract.

It looks like another idiot had too much to drink on a flight bound for South Korea:

A non-Korean man was turned over to the police and faces criminal prosecution in the U.S. after sexually harassing a stewardess on Korean Air flight KE036, according to the airline Thursday.

The man in his 50s, whose identity remains unknown, allegedly sexually harassed the stewardess on the flight from Atlanta to Incheon on Tuesday.

The man, who was wearing a wet shirt at the time of the incident, asked the stewardess if she wanted him to take off his shirt when asked if he needed a towel.

He also allegedly demanded that the stewardess sit next to him, drink wine with him and give him a massage so he could sleep better.

When the stewardess warned the man, he allegedly started to make threats, saying the airline should fire her.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

These idiots just never learn that Korean customs inspects the military mail and many people have been caught and arrested for mailing drugs into Korea:

Prosecutors on Wednesday arrested U.S. soldiers and their Korean accomplices for smuggling bags of philopon methamphetamines worth 13.6 billion won ($11.9 million).

Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office arrested an American private, 20, and two Korean-Americans for infringing Korean narcotics laws. Prosecutors also booked without arrest another American private, 20, stationed at K-6 base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, for providing an address to where the contraband could be sent.

They are also searching for four Korean-Americans.

An accomplice in California sent the drugs to Korea in December, prosecutors claim.

They weighed 4.1 kilograms ― enough for 130,000 users.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I hope they are sentenced to the maximum penalty allowed by Korean law.

This guy may want to stop having sex with women in bathrooms to stop the false rape allegations:

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on Tuesday indicted another woman on charges of falsely accusing singer-actor Park Yu-chun of boy band JYJ of rape.

The 24-year-old woman, identified by her surname Song, had consensual sex with Park in the toilet of a hostess bar in Gangnam in December of 2015.

But prosecutors believe she became aggrieved when Park left without saying another word to her, even though he had had flirted and asked for her phone number before he had his way with her.

In June of last year, Song read press reports about another woman who accused Park of rape and decided to take the same steps. She gave two media interviews falsely accusing Park of rape.

Earlier, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced a 25-year-old woman identified Lee of falsely accusing Park of rape and trying to extort W500 million from him (US$1=W1,150).  [Chosun Ilbo]

I still believe the people who make these false allegations should receive the same punishment as someone convicted of rape.