Warrant Hearing Held for Public Official Who Killed Wife... Smartwatch Fails Again

[Anchor]

A warrant hearing has been held for a man in his 30s, a public official, who murdered his wife while divorce proceedings were underway in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province. Whether he will be detained is expected to be decided as early as this afternoon.

Reporter Park Hyeon-seok has the details.

[Reporter]

Mr. A, a public official in his 30s who allegedly wielded a weapon and killed his wife amidst divorce proceedings, boards a police transport vehicle with his mask and hat pulled down.

[Mr. A : (Why did you commit domestic violence?) ... (Do you have anything to say to the bereaved family?) ...]

The Suwon District Court's Seongnam Branch held a warrant hearing at 11 a.m. today for Mr. A, who faces charges of murder and violations of the Child Welfare Act.

Mr. A is accused of murdering his wife with a weapon in front of their young children at a villa in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, at 7:17 a.m. the day before yesterday.

At the time, a smartwatch alert signaling an emergency was received, and police arrived at the scene within three minutes, but Mr. A had already fled.

CCTV footage showed that a police patrol car arrived just one minute after Mr. A fled the scene on a motorcycle.

The victim ultimately died, and Mr. A was apprehended four and a half hours after fleeing.

This is not the first time that a smartwatch alert failed to prevent a gruesome relational violent crime.

In March, a woman in her 20s killed by Kim Hoon in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, and two months prior, a woman in her 60s killed by her ex-partner in Seongnam, both reported emergencies using police-provided smartwatches, but the tragedies could not be prevented.

Police arrived at the scenes eight minutes and three minutes after the reports were received, respectively, but the incidents had already occurred.

[Park Mi-rang / Professor, Department of Police Science, Hannam University : Because it is impossible to anticipate and arrive beforehand, I think this is an inevitable limitation of the current system. We need to consider whether there are aspects of police manuals or risk assessment criteria that need further institutional supplementation.]

Whether Mr. A will be detained is expected to be decided as early as this afternoon.

(Video by Cho Chang-hyun | Video Editing by Choi Jin-hwa)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.