Gov't ordered to provide compensation over death of man handcuffed by police
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A Seoul court has ordered the government to compensate the family of a mentally ill man who died after being handcuffed by police, court records showed Saturday.
The Seoul Central District Court recently ruled that the state must pay 320 million won ($269,160) to the victim's family over the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.
The incident occurred in January 2019, when police and emergency rescue workers were called to a home in the city after the family reported that the man was behaving abnormally.
The man who suffered from a mental disorder refused to be taken to a hospital and confronted officers with two or three knives in his hands.
Officers used a stun gun to overpower the man and held him down on his stomach on a bed for about 10 minutes, with his hands cuffed behind his back and his ankles tied with bandages.
When rescue workers tried to move him, he was unconscious. He was taken to a hospital but died five months later.
The court recognized a causal relationship between the police officers' excessive force and his death.
"Handcuffing the deceased's hands and tying his feet behind his back while he was no longer in a condition to harm himself or others exceeded the standards and scope of the exercise of physical force allowed by law," the court said. (Yonhap)