Police Report to Cheong Wa Dae Pledged Immediate Response, But Failed to Cover Up Blunders?

[Anchor]

SBS has obtained a document showing that just one month before the Jang Yoon-ki case, the National Police Agency reported to Cheong Wa Dae that any stalking reports would be registered immediately. These guidelines were not followed during the initial response to the Jang Yoon-ki case, and prosecutors are now investigating whether the police deliberately tried to downplay the incident to cover up their mistakes.

Reporter Kim Deok-hyeon has the details.

[Reporter]

On March 14, Kim Hoon, a stalking murderer in Namyangju, killed a woman in her 20s he had previously dated.

[President Lee Jae-myung: Could it be that lax responses failed to prevent this horrific crime? Please hasten foolproof institutional safeguards.]

Two weeks later, on March 27, a relevant countermeasures meeting was held at Cheong Wa Dae, and SBS acquired the document reported by the National Police Agency to Cheong Wa Dae through a lawmaker's office.

The police pointed out problems where relationship-based crime victims, including stalking, reported incidents, but police closed them internally without officially registering the cases.

To improve this, they reported that regardless of police station jurisdiction, related reports would be registered as cases immediately, and also proposed conducting preliminary investigations to secure custody of high-risk offenders.

However, these measures reported by the National Police Agency to Cheong Wa Dae were not implemented during the handling of Jang Yoon-ki's stalking crime a month later.

On May 3, a Vietnamese woman identified as A called the police after Jang Yoon-ki, who had sexually assaulted her, reappeared around her home.

Jang Yoon-ki's crime appears to fall under the "high-risk group" mentioned in the Cheong Wa Dae report document, yet responding officers did not officially register the case and closed the scene simply by sending a "warning text message."

Having received only a warning message, Jang Yoon-ki discarded his mobile phone and roamed around freely, ultimately murdering the late Lee Chae-won about 28 hours after the stalking report.

Had the police officially registered the stalking report immediately and classified him as high-risk to secure custody as mentioned in the Cheong Wa Dae report document, Jang Yoon-ki's murder could have been prevented.

Recently securing the document, prosecutors suspect that the National Office of Investigation may have ordered the minimization of the Jang Yoon-ki case to hide the fact that the investigation was not conducted according to the report submitted to Cheong Wa Dae.

Park Sung-ju, the head of the National Office of Investigation at the time, explained to SBS that his instruction for "separate assignment" was "intended to have the competent department thoroughly investigate whether there were additional stalking victims."

(Photo courtesy of the office of Representative Park Su-min) (Video by Yoon Hyeong | Video Editing by Shin Se-eun | Design by Seo Hyun-jung and Lee Ga-jin)

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