[Anchor]
The reason why Choi Choong-rak considered a day-care center as his target can be easily understood just by looking at the situation at the time of the crime. He targeted only the vulnerable who were weaker than himself, and there was a clear reason for it.
Reporter Je Hui-won takes a closer look.
[Reporter]
On October 13, six of the eight people injured by the weapon wielded by Choi Choong-rak at a large multi-use complex in Guwol-dong, Incheon, were women.
[Shin Joong-hyun / Citizen who subdued the suspect: People were shouting, 'It's a knife-slashing attack!' There were mainly young children and middle-aged women there.]
When men blocked him while holding chairs, the place Choi Choong-rak headed toward was the women's restroom area.
[Kang Byung-hoon / Citizen who subdued the suspect: When people fought back holding chairs, he seemed to think it wasn't going to work out and shifted his direction toward an easier target. So toward the women's restroom....]
On the second-floor restaurant area of the building, where six people were injured—including a 19-year-old woman who has yet to regain consciousness—there were many women and young children at the time.
On the fourth floor of the building, where he tried to go up to escape the men attacking him, there was a movie theater as well as a kids' cafe.
[Shin Joong-hyun / Citizen who subdued the suspect: I thought something terrible would happen if he went up. I remember walking forward firmly, holding a chair.]
Previously, Choi had staged a one-person protest for over two months in front of a hospital where he had conflicts over dermatology treatments.
It is known that, harboring resentment after facing police investigation following a report from the hospital side, he stated to the police that he committed the crime thinking he needed to create news coverage.
While Choi claimed that he did not target specific victims,
[Yesterday (October 16), Incheon District Court: (Didn't you target only the vulnerable?) No.]
Experts emphasized that Choi intentionally targeted multiple vulnerable people to draw greater attention.
[Lee Soo-jung / Professor of Forensic Psychology at Kyonggi University: The target of the crime was not a specific person who caused him resentment at all, but rather someone with the lowest defensive capability so that he could cause numerous fatalities. It seems to be a crime where that was the goal.]
Police plan to continue their investigation based on profiler analysis results to verify the connection between Choi Choong-rak's mental illness and his motive for the crime.
(Photo: Joo Yong-jin | Video Editing: Park Na-young)
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