Jeju Provincial Police Agency has launched an inspection into the night shift logs of the missing persons team at the Jeju Seobu Police Station, separate from the ongoing investigation into allegations that a missing person case was falsely closed.
The inspection aims to determine whether Police Officer Boo, who falsely closed the missing person case, omitted or inadequately reported relevant details to his superiors.
The Jeju Provincial Police Agency is reviewing the night duty logs, which night shift workers complete and report to superiors before leaving work, in connection with the case involving Police Officer Boo.
While major missing person cases, such as those involving women who may have been victims of crime, are reported up to the chief of the Jeju Provincial Police Agency following the head of the Jeju Seobu Police Station, the initial missing person report filed on May 15 regarding a woman in her 30s surnamed Chang was not reported to the provincial police chief, despite involving a missing woman.
Officer Boo recorded the outcome in the 112-incident management system—where records cannot be independently deleted—stating that there was no possibility of Chang being a victim of crime.
However, in the missing persons profiling system management list, which he could edit independently, he deleted all related details, claiming that Chang had died in a traffic accident.
Officer Boo also falsely closed a missing person case involving a man in his 60s on July 2, but instead of deleting the details from the management list, he noted that the missing status had been lifted.
Unlike deletion, lifting a status allows other missing person investigators to view the record at any time, but because this man did not fall under major missing person categories such as women or elderly individuals with dementia, it reportedly drew less attention from superiors.
The Jeju Seobu Police Station is responsible for the western region of Jeju, including Nohyeong-dong and Yeon-dong, which are the most densely populated areas in the province. A team of four missing persons officers handles simple unreturned persons and runaways within their jurisdiction.
Operating on a rotating day-and-night shift system, most cases received by the missing persons team ultimately fall back to the individual officers' workloads.
In particular, when major missing person cases occur, the officer in charge of receiving the case reportedly delays leaving work and remains at the police station until the reporting procedure to superiors is completed.
(Reported by Kim Jiuk | Video by Kim Min-ji | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Produced by SBS Digital News)
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