As police were taking suspected serial killer Yoo Young-chul out of Yeongdeung-po Police Station today to hand him over to prosecutors, the 50-year-old mother of one of the girls Yoo killed tried to rush him, yelling abuse at the cops. As she ran up the police station front-entrance steps toward Yoo, one of the police officers guarding him kicked her in the chest, causing her to fly back down the stairs. I’d never seen anything like it. Watch the video via YTN — for the Korean illiterate, the video button looks like the thing below:
29 Comments
Imagine what they do behind closed doors.
I watched that video at a friend’s school and it was an instant hit with the office staff. Someone should get that guy a job at a girl’s high school.
I do not think the detective should be punished. He was simply doing his job. What if there had been a knife in that rolled-up newspaper? Yoo Yong-chul certainly deserves to die, but the police have a duty to protect him until his fate is determined.
Looking at the video again, I guess it was an umbrella, not a newspaper. Anyway, I think the detective was justified.
RE COMMENT: “…I think the detective was justified…”
This says far more about the author of the comment than anything else, but even if one agrees, the problem is one of balance. The police are so clumsy and sloppy they let the guy escape at one point. Then they’re pathetic enough to let her get that close… if one of them was justified in kicking her down the stairs (instead of some other tactic), then they would’ve been justified in keeping her farther away, blocking her earlier on the approach, or making him wear a bulletproof vest.
Commenter says also, “.. the police have a duty to protect him until his fate is determined…”
The outrage is of course because of the policeman’s actions, but also because it’s just unfair that they so abruptly start doing their “duty” on the chest of a 50yr old woman who has lost her daughter when they’ve been such a failure all along.
Do you hang around in subways at night much there Cpt?
The two guys who said this was justified are just plain retarded or ignorant. There are surely better and more professional ways to keep this middle aged woman away from the guy in custody. They (the cops)could have huddled around the guy and one of them could have escorted the woman away from the steps….a drop kick to the chest is simply over aggressive and dangerous- the woman could have been killed if she had landed hard enough. Of course the suspect deserves protection but this guy is not the president and those cops aren’t the secret service. It was a ridiculous overreaction!
I agree with our Oranckay on this one. Why do his duty now when they police have turned a blind eye to the killings because of the types of victims these girls were? Why kick her down the stairs when they could have stopped her at the police barricade that they placed her beyond following the fall down the stairs? Why even bring these psycho waste of a human being in public. The police have let him speak to the press on at least two occasions I have seen on TV. Is he a celebrity or suspected (as good as guilty) serial killer? Make his transfers secret in private and have better security, don’t give the son of a bitch the sick noteriety he probably wanted to receive. Make him as scarce as possible.
P.S. Websurfa I think you are talking about one person twice and not two people.
The police could not be sure that the umbrella was not some improvised weapon, which is not inconceivable considering the hatred the public has for the guy. Of course, the police screwed up by letting the woman get as close as she did, but the officer who used his foot to fend off the woman acted quickly and appropriately. It was not a “drop kick.” Check out the SBS Video of the incident. Video
The guy is a confessed serial killer, not the President of the United States, so I, for one, would not huddle around him and protect him with my body from someone who might be coming at him with an edged weapon.
Also, there are two different video versions on the SBS site, a faster one and a slower one.. Here is the slower one. video
In the slower version, you can see the officer extend his leg to fend off the woman, but then snaps his knee to push her off when she keeps coming.
The faster video, which makes the kick look more vicious, was played on the SBS 8 O’clock News.
you should hang around the subways in seoul more often.
Oh man if this happened in the US people would loose their mind and of course it would probably be broadcasted in Korea to show how brutal us Americans are.
In no way unless this woman was a clear and presant danger should the officer extended his leg in such a manner. He had more reasonable techniques at his disposal, all officers do as they are trained in this.
‘oh man, if this happened in the us…’
here in the us, innocent people sometimes get shot dead by the police.
Poor Shin Jong Il. Couldn?€™t find something in this issue to justify his slaps at the US and defense of Korea, because all the people involved are Korean?€?.So he has to jump completely off topic.
Anyway, I agree with Bevers. You can?€™t dismiss the method of the one cop by pointing out police mistakes beforehand. You can?€™t say, ?€œWell, he shouldn?€™t have been in that position to begin with.?€?
Also, I know in the US the man should have been justified. You are taught to use a ?€œ+1?€³ rule in applying force ?€” the cop should use the next highest level of force to the resistance/threat encounterd. So, even if someone runs at a cop with empty hands, the cop is justified in using a baton or pepper spray, much less an empty hand strike or kick.
The Korean cop used the method with the least amount of danger to himself while neutralizing the potential threat. There aren?€™t a whole lot of good options when dealing with someone with a knife at close range, and as long as we can say the cop couldn?€™t tell if the woman had such a weapon or not, I don?€™t think we can easily dismiss the method he chose.
You grab or just stand in front of someone who might have a weapon is charging you and see if you like it. Or just try putting yourself into a police situation with someone who is hiding his hands in pockets or behind their back or in their waistband and see if you?€™ll be eager to grab them putting your body close to theirs.
The Korean cop could have just stood there or evaded the woman and not protected the serial killer, but that wasn?€™t his job.
what the hell… drop kick, quick kick, chicken kick moo kick, who cares? he hit a harmless 50 year old woman, and that’s the conclusion! why do you think all the retarded nations are accusing Bush? cuz Iraq didn’t have the WMD. what? are you going to defend Bush now by saying that Iraq was potentially dangerous? so the war is justified? some flip flopping retards… the same logic doesn’t apply now does it? there was no WMD, therefore no reason to invade Iraq. the harmless 50 year old woman did not have weapons, therefore no reason to kick a harmless woman. use your brains for once…
the police is so retarded. that officer could have just neutralized her using some restraint technique. kicking a 50 year old woman as a defense is a load of bull crap. the police should serve the people, not try to find ways to bend the rules to fit their needs. take rules of engagement for instance… you can’t shoot unless you are being shot at. i mean, you can’t go around kicking people in the public when someone is running towards you carrying an umbrella. anyone defending that police officer is lacking common sense.
By using his leg he kept the woman’s arms a safe distance from himself and the suspect.
She was wrong to run at them like she did and she’s lucky no one was hurt.
I hope adults in Korea are teaching their children that what she did was wrong and that what the police officer did was right.
In the future I wouldn’t want to see someone get their brains blown out becuase they thought it was okay to rush at someone.
Uhh… Not to excuse people rushing cops or criminals in detention, but kicking a 50-year-old lady down the steps seems a bit much. You can’t tell me there weren’t other ways to restrain her.
Speechless is going off the deep end. You can call me a retard if you like, but much of what you wrote is wrong, and bringing up Bush and Iraq as examples in this case is retarded…..
In fact, in law enforcement in the US, knowledge after the fact can NOT be used to convict an officer. I saw a video where two cops shot a guy who only had a cellphone. But in the video, the guy twice pointed his hands toward the police exactly like you would if he were holding a gun. Both times, the cop he was pointing at ducked and stepped to the side trying to evade getting shot. The second time the guy pointed at the cop, the other shot him 4 times until he hit the ground. The cop was justified. He can’t be held accountable for not knowing the guy was pretending to have a gun. (by the way, there are cellphone guns out there and pen guns, and umbrella guns and walking stick guns and such).
Speechless’ other two examples are also wrong. Maybe at times in the military you can’t shoot unless being shot at, but that is NOT the standard operating proceedures in law enforcement.
Speechless, if you think so, you are lacking common sense. If you pull over a car for speeding, and for whatever reason, the driver decides to jump out of the car and pull a gun on you, you are telling me you would wait patiently for him to fire the first shot at you before you pulled the trigger on your own gun? Bullshit. If you pull a gun on the police, they might yell at you to drop it, but if you start waving it around or pointing it in their direction, they will shoot you and be justified. You do NOT have to wait to be shot first.
And if someone rushes at you with anything in their hands that can be used as a weapon, you CAN use empty hand strikes or even non-leathal weapons like a baton or pepper spray —- even if you recognize that the umbrella is an umbrella.
Next, to Marmot and others, I’d say this —- I don’t think the question is whether or not there were other possible methods to check the woman’s charge. The question is whether the method the police officer used was outside the bounds of standard proceedures or not. I say they were not. Again, a kick or punch is acceptable when confronted with someone aggressively approaching you even if they have nothing in their hands. Put something in their hands, you are even justified in using a baton or pepper spray or a taiser.
Sure, I can imagine cops in the US grabbing the woman to subdue her rather than a strike. But that doesn’t make a strike unacceptable. But think about it. What if the woman had had a knife? What if the umbrella were the kind where the handle can be removed to reveal a short sword? A hysterical mom whose daughter was brutally killed is rushing the man who killed her. Could she have the mind-set to run the guy through with a blade? Sure. So are you really just going to jump in front of her and grab her — exposing yourself to taking the brunt of her rage in the form of a knife in the gut or a slash across your arm even if you do manage to grab her from behind?
It might be easy to say the woman was not a threat after the fact when you know she only had a regular umbrella. Sure it looks bad on tv to see a middle aged woman kicked down the steps……But if you were in a similar situation with someone rushing toward you in anger, would you simply try to grab them???
I think we’re putting ourselves too much in the shoes of the poor mother who lost her daughter here. So we get Speechless trying to have us believe if he were faced with someone with a gun coming at him, he’d wait until the guy fired the first shot at him before he’d be justified in shooting. Come on…..
Why are so many Korean women prostitutes?
i will acknowledge that i went off to a tangent talking about bush. but that was an example, which you totally blew out of the proportion. i will also acknowledge that in the law enforcement agency, the police do have the right to use force when the situation permits. you cannot deny the fact that in the end the fault is placed on the police. defend the police all you want, but if you make compromises in key events allowing the police to have greater use of force, then in the end the people are going to lose. i guess thinking in non-partisan way is a good thing, that’s what blogs are for anyway. but don’t tell me that you will be calm and cool when someone you care about is butchered and the police messes up the case, and in the end up course kick her 50 year old mother down the stairs. you have some great oold logic there usinkorea. that will get you far in the social world i bet.
Why are so many Korean women prostitutes? - Fabius (?)
I’m speechless… with a small “s”, folks.
I would rather be booted than pepper-sprayed, which is what would have happened here in Canada. Pepper spray lasts a lot longer.
Look in the back right of the picture: what the hell are all those policeman doing back there? Why weren’t they actually in a position to block people from rushing the victim? Did it never occur to them that there might be, oh, I don’t know…200-300 family members and friends of the deceased who might try to clobber or kill this guy?
Police messed up by not blocking the “suspect” from the crowd effectively in the first place (she should have never gotten within 20 feet of the guy).
THAT is where the monumental fuck up is. Yes, the cop messed up, but unless he has a history of kicking 50 year-old women down stairs everytime he has half a chance then it was a mistake deserving a light reprimand. Shit happens fast and in that split-second he just didn’t have time to analyze the situation like all the above posters here. Give him a reprimand and fire his idiot supervisor who didn’t cut position the police officers like he should have in the first place.
Maybe they should have taken the lunatic out the back entrance? But they didn’t.
So does that mean the police should expect someone to charge towards the suspect with an umbrella. What if the officer doesn’t kick her and she jabs the umbrella into the cop’s eye by accident? So then we have a cop with one eye missing and ajumma doesn’t have a sore ass?
If you make a charge like that you should expect some unique resistance.
For heaven’s sake, guys. She has lost her daughter, because a fucking bastard killed her for whatever irrational reasons. I don’t care, if her daughter was a prostitute or a damned well-mannered Ewha student - she was muredered and the mother was kicked to the ground by the police, who wasn’t able to do their job appropriatly and protect the lives of those rich elderly citizens and young female outsiders of the Korean society. Isn’t it fucking sad, even for us amateurish TV-educated cops??? The ajumma fell on her ass, but we are bystanding asses altogether.
But the police officer in that instance does not know any of that! For heaven’s sake, what?
I can just run at that guy and not expect to be resisted? The cop doesn’t know who she is , how old she is, what color her hair is…etc.. what are you getting at?
Some one charged and he reacted.
^^^For heaven?€™s sake, guys. She has lost her daughter, because a fucking bastard killed her for whatever irrational reasons. I don?€™t care, if her daughter was a prostitute or a damned well-mannered Ewha student - she was muredered and the mother was kicked to the ground by the police, who wasn?€™t able to do their job appropriatly and protect the lives of those rich elderly citizens and young female outsiders of the Korean society. Isn?€™t it fucking sad, even for us amateurish TV-educated cops??? The ajumma fell on her ass, but we are bystanding asses altogether.^^^
Speechless, “you have some great odd logic there usinkorea. that will get you far in the social world i bet” I don’t take offense, but I’m also not the one running around like a chicken with its head cut off slamming people wildly.
And everybody —- it is highly possible to sympathise with the mother and other family members of the victims, feel disgust that the police didn’t catch the guy sooner or that we didn’t hear much about the serial killer because of who the victims were, and at the very same time……really…..the very same same same time……..understand/condone what that one cop did.
Understanding the cop’s actions in no way deminishes my feelings for the mother. Period.
And I’m not just speaking as a TV-educated cop here. I have had professional training and experience in this field.
I’m not Korean, but I would bet money the cop is disgusted himself with the position he found himself in. I’d bet he has gone over in his mind what other techniques might have worked. But I also bet he feels he was justified in what he did. Does that mean he likes the killer above the mother? Hell no. He was doing his job.
And since we are all gung-ho here to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, I ask you again to put yourself in his
“here in the us, innocent people sometimes get shot dead by the police. ”
Comment by shin jong il ?€” July,27 2004 (Tuesday) @ 4:11 am
Yea because many people in the US have guns and police react to what they see. There are many police in the US that are shot as well. I have been pulled over and have not been shot because I don’t act like an ass.
murray,
i used to ride the subways all the time when i lived there. i saw lots of korean guys getting medieval on korean woman. riding late at night was especially fun. people puking mixing with the smell of kimchi breath. the smell would knock you over when the doors opened.