"Immediate Registration" Reported to Cheong Wa Dae... Did Police Try to Cover Up Blunder?

[Anchor]

SBS has obtained a document showing that police leadership reported to Cheong Wa Dae about a month before the Jang Yoon-ki incident that they would immediately register stalking crime reports upon receipt. However, this reported protocol was not implemented during the initial response to the Jang Yoon-ki incident, and it has been confirmed that prosecutors are investigating whether the police ordered the cover-up of the case to hide these missteps.

Here is the report by reporter Kim Deok-hyeon.

[Reporter]

On March 14, Kim Hoon, the perpetrator of the Namyangju stalking murder, killed a woman in her 20s whom he had previously dated.

[President Lee Jae-myung: Wasn't it a lax response that failed to prevent this horrific crime...? Please also expedite foolproof institutional supplements.]

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

The police pointed out problems in cases where victims of relational crimes, including stalking, reported incidents but the police arbitrarily closed them without registering the cases.

To improve this, they reported that whenever relevant reports came in, regardless of police station jurisdiction, they would immediately register the cases, and also proposed conducting preliminary investigations to secure custody for high-risk groups.

However, this protocol reported by the National Police Agency to Cheong Wa Dae was not implemented during the response to Jang Yoon-ki's stalking crime that occurred about a month later.

On May 3, a Vietnamese woman, A, reported to the police when Jang Yoon-ki, who had sexually assaulted her, appeared near her home again.

Jang Yoon-ki's crime appears to fall under the "high-risk group" mentioned in the Cheong Wa Dae report document, yet the responding police officers closed the case on-site without formally registering it, only sending a "warning text message."

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

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

Recently securing the document, prosecutors suspect whether the National Office of Investigation (NOI) 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-joo, the then head of the National Office of Investigation, explained to SBS that the instruction for "separate assignment" was "intended for the competent department to thoroughly investigate whether there were additional stalking victims."

(Camera: Yoon Hyeong | Video Editing: Shin Se-eun | Design: Seo Hyun-jung, Lee Ga-jin | Photo courtesy of Representative Park Soo-min's Office)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.