Category: crime & punishment

Some may say this is victim blaming, but I think it is just common sense to not get drunk alone with people you just met in a foreign country you know nothing about, unless of course they used a date rape drug against her which is an entirely different story.  With that said lets hope these three guys are vigorously investigated by Korean authorities which have a well established track record of poorly handling sexual assault cases like this:

Three Korean males have been arrested on charges of gang-raping a Swedish tourist they met at a nightclub in Hongdae, Seoul, police said Wednesday.

It looks like a New Zealand diplomat and his friends are in some serious trouble from an incident that happened recently in Itaewon:

Police questioned a New Zealand diplomat on Wednesday for allegedly obstructing officers who tried to arrest his friends on suspicion of molesting a female bar worker.

Yongsan Police Station in Seoul said two companions of the diplomat, whose identity remains unknown, allegedly molested a female employee at a bar in Itaewon Tuesday night and assaulted a security guard who tried to take them to police. As police tried to arrest the two, the diplomat allegedly pushed them and kicked the patrol car.

The diplomat and his friends were taken to the police station that night. But the diplomat was freed under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which gives foreign diplomats here immunity from civil or criminal prosecution. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

The recent murder of a Korean woman in Gangnam is being used to bring attention to the issue of violent crime against women.  Now Vice News has jumped on the bandwagon to publish an article criticizing a culture that allows violent crimes against women in South Korea to occur:

For years now, South Korea has been trying to build a legal system to deal with the problem. As Dr Kyungja Jung, of the University of Technology Sydney told me, the country has come far since the days when police themselves would sexually assault detained female activists.”There has been tremendous changes in legislation, services, and programs for the victims,” she said.

Neither is South Korea the only country struggling with the issue. All countries experience some baseline level of sexism and the latest numbers from the World Health Organisation suggest 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced sexual violence.

But South Korea, a country with one of the most influential youth cultures in Asia, is also a society with a deep gender inequality according to the World Economic Forum which ranks the nation 117 out of 142, putting it alongside Qatar and Nigeria.

This is a subject Koreans do not like to discuss, partly because defamation laws in the country are strong, making criticism of the government, police, or major corporations dangerous. Many of those I contacted over the last two weeks were afraid to talk for fear of a lawsuit, though few would say so outright.

When they responded, they were often “too busy.” One person who worked in a frontline support service for rape victims told someone who had contacted them on my behalf: “This is a sensitive issue and I am Korean.”

Those more willing to speak out were young activists. One male activist who worked on a team which monitored rapists on Sora.net told me that in 1995, seven out of 10 women were victims of violent crimes, but that number has increased to nine out of 10. Because I can’t speak Korean, I cannot easily verify those numbers, but I asked him why he thought that was.  [Vice News]

You can read much more at the link, but in my opinion this article is poor journalism which this last excerpted paragraph is an example of.  The writer admits that he can’t verify the statistic that 9 out of 10 women in South Korea were victims of violent crimes, but went ahead and published it anyway.  If 90% of the women in Korea are victims of violent crime there would be a political revolution to improve public safety.  The President is a woman so does anyone think she would stand for such a thing?

Poor Example

A random murder by a mentally deranged homeless person that had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals does not suddenly make South Korea a haven for violent crime against women.  Speaking of this murderer the article made no mention that he was schizophrenic and instead led readers to believe he simply killed the woman because he hated women.  This narrative is about as honest as the “gentle giant” narrative used by the US media after the Michael Brown shooting.

As far as some of the other examples used in the article such as the Australian woman interviewed and the man acquitted of rape because he had a curved man part I would like to hear the other side of the story because often these stories are never as simple as advocates claim them to be.  With that all said the premise that South Korea has a problem investigating sexual assault cases I think is true, I just hate tabloid journalism being used to make this point.

Past Investigations

In the past South Korean authorities were just incompetent with dealing with violent crime against women.  I can remember when a US soldier was raped shortly after she arrived at Incheon International Airport and the rapist was acquitted because the soldier did not resist enough. In another case the sentencing for rape was so light that whether the suspect committed robbery as was the focus of the case because it had more jail time.  Then there is this case of a foreign English teacher who was brutally raped and forced to suffer police incompetence afterwards.  Finally who can forget the Miryang Gang Rape case which was just a travesty.

I do have to admit that things have gotten better in recent years such as South Korea finally barring teachers convicted of sex crimes of getting their jobs back.  Even the ROK military has launched a campaign to crackdown on sexual assault and harassment within their ranks which they have long been known for.  What do the statistics say?  Well they say arrests for rape have skyrocketed over the last decade.

Statistics from the Korean National Police Agency.

It is important to keep in mind that just because arrests are up this does not necessarily mean that rape is up.  It can be argued that due to awareness campaigns in South Korea women are now more likely to report rape and the police are taking the allegations more seriously.

How do these statistics stack up against the United States? With a population of 51 million people in South Korea and 20,045 rape arrests in 2014 this has a occurence rate of 1 in 2,544 people.  The Department of Justice reported 284,350 rapes in the United States in 2014 and with a population of 318 million this comes out to an occurrence rate of 1 in 1,118 people.  This is higher than South Korea, but keep in mind difference in statistic compilation does make comparisons difficult, but does give an indication that rapes are lower in South Korea than the US.

Conclusion

Today I think the problem is mostly how Korean police look differently at alcohol related sexual assaults than other countries.  If Korea is like the US, the vast majority of rape cases are probably he said/she said cases that involve alcohol.  When alcohol is involved South Korean authorities are well known for showing more leniency towards perpetrators though in recent years there has been some changes to the law.  In the United States alcohol is not considered the mitigating factor for committing crime like it is in South Korea.  In fact at least in the US military alcohol has been used as factor to over prosecute people for sexual assault.

This is an area I think women in Korea need to be aware of that a date rape type of scenario after a night of drinking alcohol, it is likely to be more difficult to get Korean authorities to vigorously investigate and prosecute the perpetrator.  So looking at the facts South Korea does not necessarily have a violent crime problem against women, it just has a different perspective in regards to how vigorously it will prosecute these crimes when it involves alcohol.  This perspective appears to be slowly changing with the increased rape arrests and I would not be surprised if arrests continue to increase in the coming years as societal attitudes towards the crime continue to change.

Gender Minister Kang Eun-hee looks at a myriad of Post-it condolence messages on the wall of a subway exit in southern Seoul on May 20, 2016, which citizens voluntarily left to mourn the brutal murder of a 23-year-old woman in an alleged hate crime. The woman was fatally stabbed by a stranger in a bathroom near Gangnam Subway Station on Tuesday, sparking a nationwide outpouring of mourning. (Yonhap)

This is a senseless and brutal murder by some homeless guy in Gangnam.  However, the usual suspects are out trying to paint this as a hate crime despite the fact the homeless guy has a history of schizophrenia and has been in and out of mental hospitals:

Mass public mourning of a 23-year-old woman who was fatally stabbed by a stranger in a bathroom near Gangnam Station, southern Seoul, on Tuesday, sparked a rallying call against misogyny across the nation.

Hundreds of people voluntarily left Post-it condolence notes and white chrysanthemums near Exit 10 of Gangnam Station to mourn the victim’s brutal slaying since Wednesday morning.

Politicians visited the impromptu mourning site, which was proposed by a Twitter user that went viral Wednesday, to pay their condolences. Moon Jae-in, the former chairman of the Minjoo Party visited the station Wednesday morning unaccompanied by aides. On Thursday, Cho Eun-hee, head of the Seocho District Office, and Park Won-soon, Seoul mayor, visited the site as well.

“I will preserve the mourning site as well as the memory of the tragic event,” wrote Park on Twitter. “I’ll try to heal the world into a place where there will be no more killings due to anger and hatred.”

After the police announced Tuesday that the 34-year-old suspect, a homeless man surnamed Kim, admitted that he didn’t know the victim but killed her out of vengeance against women in general for looking down on him, misogyny in Korea became a trending topic online and in the Post-its at Gangnam Station.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This murder case in Hawaii has just gotten a whole lot weirder.  Obviously this NCO has some serious sexual issues if he is having affairs, watching child porn and prostituting himself to other men:

An Army medic charged with conspiring with his lover to kill his wife in Hawaii will be court-martialed for child pornography and prostitution charges that surfaced while investigating the killing.

Sgt. Michael Walker’s general court-martial is set for June 20 and June 21 at Wheeler Army Airfield on Oahu, said Jim Guzior, spokesman for Tripler Army Medical Center, where Walker has been assigned since 2013. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for next week.

Walker has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in civilian court in the killing of Catherine Walker, who was found stabbed to death in November 2014 in the military housing the couple shared in Honolulu.

Army prosecutors revealed new allegations during a military judicial hearing in March, where they said Michael Walker is accused of possessing and viewing child pornography and receiving money in exchange for sex with men.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It might help to track this guy down if a picture of what he looked like was available:

A U.S. soldier under military investigation has disappeared from a base near the border with North Korea, a spokesman said Thursday.

The missing soldier is being investigated for a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, said Lt. Col. Richard Hyde, a 2nd Infantry Division spokesman. South Korean police said the soldier had been scheduled to face a court-martial Wednesday, but the military declined to confirm that or provide details about the charges.

The soldier, who is in his 20s, is not wanted for a violent crime, Hyde said.

“We do not believe that he is armed or dangerous,” he said. “He is believed to be in Seoul.”  [Stars & Stripes]

There is a lot to discuss in this article to include the fact that the SHARP training after all these years has been wrong:

How drunk is too drunk to consent to sex?

According to military training aimed at preventing sexual harassment and assault, the answer has been: barely tipsy.

For years, Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention training informed troops that even one drink made a person incapable of giving consent.

In legal terms, that wasn’t true.

The issue has been at the heart of many cases in military courtrooms over the past decade. How many drinks an alleged victim consumed and how much alcohol rendered him or her “incapable of consenting” is frequently disputed at trial.

Now, for the first time, a military court decision has defined the term “incapable of consenting” while overturning a sailor’s conviction for sexually assaulting two subordinates under the influence of “significant amounts of alcohol.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces agreed in a March decision that a person is incapable of consenting when he or she lacks “the cognitive ability to appreciate the sexual conduct in question or the physical or mental ability to make or to communicate a decision about whether they agree to the conduct.” In rendering its decision, the court upheld a 2015 decision by the Navy-Marine appellate court.  [Stars & Stripes]

I read the bold text to mean that if someone is able to communicate that they want to have sex that this is consent regardless of whether they were drinking.  Because of this definition the sailor convicted of sexual assault in the article for having a drunken twosome was released from prison after serving 21 months of a six year sentence.  He left the Navy with an honorable discharge earlier this month.

Here is how the head of a major sexual assault advocacy group has responded to this change:

“There’s that common sense part of it,” he said. “What if you were trying to do a business transaction (with a drunken person)? You’re taking advantage of that guy. He doesn’t understand the intricacies.”

So what if the accused was drinking?  Isn’t the accused decision making ability altered as well?  How is it just the accuser’s ability to make decisions is hampered by alcohol and not the accused?  Anyway I agree with what this lawyer had to say to wrap up the article:

Jack Zimmermann, a Houston military appellate lawyer, said he doubted the case would have a significant effect.

“In reality, it’s going to be very similar to the way it’s been: You look at the words and actions of the people involved,” he said. “The bottom line in these sexual assault cases is that they are going to be won or lost in the courtroom when the complaining witness testifies and the jury believes her or not.”

Even with this new definition I suspect that cases with weak evidence will still get sent to court martial where juries will be left with the difficult job of figuring out the truth of what happened based off of drunken memories.

Here is another story of a senior military leader in big trouble.  This time Colonel David Cockrum the former commander of the 51st Medical Group on Osan Airbase was charged with sexually assaulting two male servicemembers, but was found not guilty of those charges, but was instead found guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer for fraternizing with the male servicemembers:

An Air Force colonel with nearly 20 years of service was found not guilty of sexual assault during his court-martial last week.

Col. David Cockrum, former commander of the 51st Medical Group at Osan Air Base, South Korea, was found not guilty of two specifications of sexual assault and one specification of abusive sexual contact in violation of Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Pacific Air Forces spokesman Col. David Honchul told Air Force Times on Tuesday.

Cockrum was found guilty of one charge of conduct unbecoming an officer. According to court documents, he faced that charge because he did “knowingly fraternize with enlisted persons, on terms of military equality  … such conduct being to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces,” between July 2014 and March 2015.

The military judge sentenced him to 30 days confinement, forfeiture of $5,000 pay per month for eight months ($40,000 total), and a reprimand, Honchul said.  [Air Force Times]

You can read more at the link.

Over the past two months two US military colonels have found themselves facing a number of serious charges to include sexual assault.  The first one Colonel Shane Tomko has already found himself in jail for violating a pretrial agreement:

A Marine officer facing a general court-martial over allegations of sexual assault has been sent to a county jail for violating the terms of his pretrial agreement.

Col. T. Shane “Rhino” Tomko, the former commander of the Marine Corps’ Wounded Warrior Regiment, was sent to the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford, Virginia, on May 6, said Rex Runyon, a Marine Corps spokesman. Tomko is in the process of being transferred to the U.S. Navy brig in Chesapeake, Virginia, he added.  (………)

Tomko faces charges of abusive sexual contact, fraternization, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, wrongful possession of anabolic steroids, obstructing justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and violations of lawful orders, according to the charge sheet against him.  [Marine Corps Times]

According to Marine Corps Life he forcibly kissed a female Marine on the mouth and supposedly said that she was “a hot and intriguing dyke that makes me wish I were a woman.”

Then over in Colorado there is an Air Force colonel who seems to be quite the ladies man when he isn’t being accused of sexual assault:

The former vice commander of the 50th Space Wing, charged with rape, assault, adultery and other lewd acts, will head to a general court-martial in August, according to the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

Col. Eugene Marcus Caughey, currently assigned to Air Force Space Command at Peterson, was charged Dec.10 with rape and assault at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, after in late 2014 or early 2015 he allegedly used “unlawful force” to hold the victim “against the wall and floor” while committing a sexual act, charge sheet documents reveal. He was also charged with various acts of alleged misconduct — which includes taking photos of his genitals while in uniform — dating back to 2013, according to his charge sheet.  [Air Force Times]

You can read more at the link, but this guy supposedly had six different girlfriends while being married and his defense is that they are spurned lovers.

These two colonels are of course innocent until proven guilty, but regardless they are quite the embarrassment for the US military.