A woman who reported her lover’s violence to police was murdered by her live-in boyfriend just 10 minutes after leaving the precinct, sparking a shocking debate about the appropriateness of police action. “Police applied for an arrest warrant for the man메이저놀이터, who said he felt bad for reporting the incident, on July 27 on suspicion of retaliatory murder.
Seoul’s Geumcheon Police Station (Chief Choi Jin-tae) held a briefing on the murder, which occurred in Siheung-dong, Geumcheon-gu, on the afternoon of the 27th, reiterating that “victim N did not want suspect G’s punishment and home protection measures for himself at the time of the police consultation, so no separation measures were taken.” The man, G, 33, who committed the violence while trying to force N, 47, to get back together after receiving a breakup notice, is suspected of stabbing N to death at 7:17 a.m. in the parking lot of an underground shopping mall in Siheung-dong after receiving a police investigation the previous day.
After police received a report of violence, Ms. N said, “We are in a relationship, but I have no intention of getting married. We don’t share living expenses, and once he leaves the house, he stays out for a long time and sometimes comes back in.” The police determined that they were not in a common-law relationship and did not apply the Special Act on the Punishment of Domestic Violence Crimes (Domestic Violence Punishment Act) to separate them.
However, according to Mr. G’s statement, the two lived together at the victim’s house with Mr. N’s mother one to two days a week. Mr. G reportedly had no steady job and no income. At the briefing, there were many questions about whether the two were living together in a common-law relationship, but the police drew the line at “a simple romantic relationship”.
Experts have mixed feelings about the police’s judgment. Hyejin Seo, a lawyer at The Lighthouse Law Firm, said, “In this case, it doesn’t matter if it’s a romantic relationship or a common-law relationship. What matters is how the police judged the relationship and its risk,” said Seo. “The police’s failure to provide victim protection seems egregious,” he said. It’s not uncommon for victims to decline protection. Since the protection measures are not entirely voluntary, even if the victim refuses the protection measures, the police should have actively assessed the situation and checked.
“I understand the police’s difficulties. In such situations, retaliatory crimes are likely to occur later, but it is often difficult to do more than warn the perpetrator or talk to the victim about safety. The system for protecting victims is inadequate.”
According to the police, the victim, Ms. N, gave Mr. G a breakup notice on the 21st, and Mr. G stayed overnight at a fish restaurant. On the 26th, the day of the crime, G confirmed that N was at a fish restaurant in Siheung-dong, which he had been frequenting with N, and took her out and assaulted her. At 5:40 a.m., after the two went to the district police station, G went to N’s house first, brought a weapon, and waited for N in the underground parking lot of a shopping center where the fish restaurant was located. At 7:07, Mr. N came out from the district police station after being investigated, and at 7:17, Mr. N was stabbed several times with a weapon. This was only 10 minutes after the investigation.
Prior to this, Mr. G allegedly spoke to the victim on the phone shortly after leaving the precinct, telling him that he was going to his home in Paju. When she said, “I want you to go to (Mr. N’s) house in Siheung-dong and take your luggage,” he told her to “send it by courier,” making it sound as if he was taking a taxi to Paju, so she was relieved and went to the underground parking lot of the fish restaurant to pick up her car.
The police emphasized that the victim, Ms. N, considered the initial report to be minor, noting that she “reported property damage, saying that Mr. G broke her TV, changed the combination to her front door, and assaulted her by grabbing her arm three or four times.” She explained that her risk of relationship violence was assessed as low, but did not provide a specific risk score.
Mr. G fled with an unconscious Ms. N in his rental car shortly after the attack on the morning of the 26th and was caught at 3:30 p.m. that afternoon in Paju-si, Gyeonggi Province. Police found Ms. N’s body in the back seat of the car. During the police investigation, Mr. G stated that he initially sought medical treatment at a hospital in Siheung-dong, then changed his destination to a hospital in Ilsan, but when Mr. G stopped breathing around 9 a.m., he turned to Paju, Gyeonggi Province.
Meanwhile, two passersby who witnessed the scene in the underground parking lot of a shopping mall immediately after G’s crime reportedly did not report it because they were told lies by G, such as “his girlfriend was injured and was going to the hospital” and “he was pregnant.” If they had called the police in time to report the incident, they could have saved Ms. N’s life with an early investigation. At 10:41 a.m., the police received a report from a shopping center manager that there were bloodstains in the parking lot, and after analyzing the surrounding closed-circuit television (CCTV), they identified Ms. G as a suspect and arrested her.
At 4:30 p.m. on the 27th, police applied for an arrest warrant for Mr. G. at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office on suspicion of retaliatory murder under the Specified Crimes Aggravated Punishment Act. They did not apply for charges such as abandoning a corpse.