Missing Child Case Marked "Deceased"... Records Deleted Without Search

It has been revealed that Police Officer Boo, the suspect in the Jeju false missing case closure scandal, not only deleted or failed to enter records for adults, but also for subjects under the current Act on the Protection and Support of Missing Children and Other Vulnerable Persons.

This is beyond common comprehension, given that the police officer in charge of missing persons even deleted management information for high-risk children and individuals with mental disabilities who are vulnerable to crime and susceptible to death in prolonged missing person cases.

According to the Jeju Provincial Police Agency on the 2nd, Officer Boo deleted or omitted 63 records in the missing persons profiling system management list, multiple of which were confirmed to be protected subjects under the Missing Children Act, such as children.

The missing persons profiling system is a police management system used to enter and search information on missing persons when they occur.

Out of the 63 cases, 15 cases were normally closed after frontline police and others immediately tracked down the whereabouts of the missing persons upon receiving the reports. However, it was investigated that Officer Boo, the missing persons team officer in charge, arbitrarily deleted the management list records for these 15 cases after initially entering them.

The police explained that these 15 cases with deleted management lists also partially included protected subjects under the Missing Children Act.

Management list records can only be deleted when a missing person dies, such as an unidentified body, and once deleted, the records cannot be searched again.

If these records are deleted, surviving children, individuals with disabilities, and dementia patients cannot view previous details when they go missing again after returning home, creating difficulties in on-site search operations.

The Missing Children Act targets high-risk groups who are vulnerable to crime or whose lives may be threatened in long-term missing person cases, such as children, individuals with intellectual, autistic, or mental disabilities, and dementia patients.

Unlike reports of missing adults, regulations require that such cases be immediately reported to the head of the police station so that extensive searches can be conducted, and no one is allowed to use or handle the subjects' records arbitrarily.

Officer Boo was investigated for self-closing 298 cases while working in the missing persons team at the Jeju Seobu Police Station from March of last year to July of this year.

Among these, 141 cases were reports concerning protected subjects under the Missing Children Act.

Officer Boo was arrested and referred to the prosecution on charges of falsely closing cases for two adult missing persons who were reported missing in May and July of this year, respectively.

Both of these adult missing persons were found dead a considerable time after being reported missing.

In addition to the two previously uncovered false closure cases, the police requested an investigation into 10 additional false closure cases and 15 management list deletion cases.

The police stated that the primary motive behind Officer Boo's crimes was "negligence driven by fatigue stemming from accumulated work pressure and heavy responsibilities."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.