Drunken man destroys police station branch with excavator
By Yun Suh-young
A drunken heavy equipment driver drove an excavator into a police station, damaging the building and a police car.
The 41-year-old man, identified by his last name Hwang, smashed into the Jinju Police Station in South Gyeongsang Province at around 10 p.m. Monday with an excavator and was caught after police fired live ammunition at him, wounding him in the thigh.
The man caused mayhem in front of the station with the excavator by lifting a police car, turning it up-side-down and pushing it into the wall of the building several times. The car was crushed, and signboards and the wall of the police station were severely damaged.
Hwang drove the excavator erratically and also damaged the surrounding area including the entrance to the police station, a streetlamp and roadside trees.
None of the six officers inside the police station were able to stop him.
Even when a police officer jumped onto the excavator to stop him, Hwang swung the cabin around to dislodge him. Hwang also drove backwards on the road alongside the police station.
Police fired two shots with a taser but this failed to stop him.
Hwang was stopped only after a police officer from a nearby station came and shot three bullets targeting Hwang’s lower body. One of them hit Hwang’s upper leg and he finally stopped the mayhem after took 40 minutes.
Hwang was moved to a hospital but his injuries are not life-threatening, according to police. During an alcohol test conducted there, he was found to be drunk over the acceptable limit. His blood alcohol concentration was at 0.099 percent where 0.1 is the standard in which a driver’s license is cancelled.
Earlier that day, Hwang had been arrested for injuring an official and a police officer at city hall while complaining that he got a ticket for parking illegally when other cars didn’t. He was let go after questioning.
The police plan to request an arrest warrant on Hwang for interfering with the duties of government officials.