"Please Save Me" Met with Giggles: What CCTV Revealed Before 3-Year-Old's Death

Do you remember the late Choi Do-ha, who died after being trapped upside down inside a rolled mat for 27 minutes? For those hearing about this case for the first time, let us look back at what happened two years ago.

In July 2024, the late Choi Do-ha, who was 3 years old at the time, died at a Taekwondo gym in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province. The head of the gym, Choi, deliberately stuffed the child upside down into a rolled-up mat and refused to pull him out despite Do-ha's desperate cries to save him. Choi was eventually put on trial on charges of child abuse murder and habitual child abuse, and the Supreme Court finalized a 30-year prison sentence in January this year.

However, the director was not the only one who ignored Do-ha's cries of "Please save me" from inside the mat. There were also instructors present at the Taekwondo gym. What were the instructors doing while the director abused the children? This question prompted continued reporting two years after the incident occurred.

What we obtained was CCTV footage recorded inside the Taekwondo gym for approximately two months prior to the fatal incident. Director Choi had deleted the footage at the time, but after it was restored through digital forensics, the videos were fragmented into second-by-second segments, resulting in more than 300 files. Reviewing them one by one revealed previously undisclosed scenes. The director spins the late Choi Do-ha in midair with his arms tied with a rope. After falling to the floor, Do-ha collapses, drained of energy. Yet the director does not stop there, tying the child's arms again and spinning him in the air once more. The child collapses limply again as if having passed out. But what did the instructor standing right in front of them do? He did not intervene, rescue the child, or tell the director to stop. He just stood there watching.

There are other videos as well. The director swings his arm widely to strike a child on the head. Even as the terrified child clings to the wall crying, the director raises his foot as if preparing a flying kick. Meanwhile, other instructors standing nearby, Person B and Person C, are simply smiling broadly.

There was also footage from two days before Do-ha died. The director placed Do-ha on a high mat and kicked him to knock him down, forced him to hold a push-up position for about five minutes, and stuffed him into a rolled mat yet again. Far from helping, one instructor approached and forcefully shook Do-ha.

Seeing these situations solely through video was heartbreaking, but did these instructors think differently? By law, these instructors are designated mandatory reporters of child abuse. However, they offered the absurd excuse that "Director Choi was violent and difficult to talk to, so we had no choice."

There were three instructors in total. Among them, Person A is currently on trial for child abuse. This is because Person A was caught on CCTV directly abusing a child, forcibly pulling a crying child by the wrist and lifting him up.

The other two who were seen smiling broadly earlier, Person B and Person C, were not captured directly hitting or abusing children. As a result, their cases were initially referred to court as "child protection cases" rather than ordinary criminal trials. When a case is handled as a child protection case, the individuals receive only protective dispositions such as probation, counseling, or community service, which do not leave a criminal record.

Here came a twist. The court determined that this case should not end merely with protective dispositions. Consequently, on August 10, the Uijeongbu District Court sent the cases of Person B and Person C back to the prosecution. This opens the possibility of a reopened prosecutorial investigation and potential indictment for a criminal trial. Person B, who shook Do-ha while he was trapped inside the mat, even introduced himself in court as a "Taekwondo instructor." When the presiding judge asked, "Are you still teaching Taekwondo to children?", Person B answered that he is.

Do-ha's mother said:

Choi Min-young /   Mother of the late Choi Do-ha  
"When the children were being treated worse than animals, they (the instructors) stood nearby laughing. If they had just come and told me, the children wouldn't have ended up dead or hurt…."

If only they had given even a hint while dropping the children off in the shuttle van, wouldn't the situation have been different? In the end, this is the crucial issue: to what extent can we hold accountable not only those who directly committed the abuse, but also those who witnessed the situation and did nothing? Even right now, there are surely children waiting for someone's help. For children who need active intervention from adults, if you suspect child abuse, set aside concerns about meddling and report it by calling 112 or 129.

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