Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Police to be granted more leeway to use force against violent criminals
An armed special police squad patrols southern Seoul's Gangnam Station in response to a murder threat posted online, Monday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
By Lee Hae-rin
By Lee Hae-rin
Amid growing fears of random attacks and online murder threats forewarning of copycat crimes, Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon ordered the prosecution, Monday, to broadly endorse the use of force by police in the process of arresting violent offenders.
The Korean National Police Agency announced measures for “special policing against serious crimes,” Friday, and urged front-line officers to use firearms and stun guns against culprits at the scenes of stabbing rampages.
The minister's statement came amid criticism against an order discouraging police officials responding on site from actively arresting suspects of violent crimes for fear of allegations of police brutality.
“The recent series of random violent crimes led some innocent civilians to die and heightened public concerns,” the minister said explaining the order's background in a released statement.
Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon attends a special cabinet meeting at Seoul Government Complex, Friday. Newsis
“However, some past cases where (police) use of force during arrests resulted in assault charges have troubled police and law enforcement officers to actively use force and interfered with immediate apprehension of suspects,” the minister said.
Han said that according to the law and precedent, “A just use of force against a brutal criminal is a legal self-defense, thus can be subject to conflicts of justifications, which is free from criminal prosecution.”
The minister ordered the prosecution to actively consider granting conflicts of justification to police officials and regular citizens who use force to stop violent crimes. Conflicts of justification refers to a special pardon given to an act of crime by not admitting its illegality.
Police plan to actively apply exemption provisions to officials who use firearms to control and arrest dangerous suspects.
Police announced, Monday, that as of 7 a.m. that morning, 187 internet murder threats had been found online and 59 people in connection to menacing posts are under investigation, with three already detained. Over half of the arrested suspects, or 34 out of 59, were teenagers, police said.
Meanwhile, crime experts call for fundamental solutions to better understand and prevent violent attacks targeting random crowds of strangers.
“We need to study and understand which series of life events made Choi and Cho (suspects arrested for recent deadly rampages at Sillim and Seohyeon stations) who they are today,” Lee Yoon-ho, a professor of Police Administration at Korea Cyber University told The Korea Times, Monday.
Lee said the police and scholars should analyze the nature and cause of random attacks to prevent future rampages by identifying those with potential risk factors and provide social care to those in need so that they won't express their frustration and anger against random victims.