It has been revealed that Police Inspector Bu, a suspect in the Jeju missing persons report false closure case, deleted or failed to enter records not only for adults, but also for individuals protected under the current Act on the Protection and Support of Missing Children (hereafter referred to as the Missing Children Act).

This is incomprehensible from a common-sense perspective, given that a police officer in charge of missing persons cases even deleted management information for high-risk children, people with mental disabilities, and others who are vulnerable to crime and at risk of death in cases of prolonged disappearance.

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

The missing persons profiling system is a police management system used to enter and search for missing person information when a disappearance occurs.

Out of the 63 cases, 15 were cases where regional police and other officers immediately located the missing individuals upon receiving reports and normally closed the cases. However, investigations showed that Inspector Bu, who was in charge of the missing persons team, had entered the management list records for these 15 cases and then arbitrarily deleted them.

Police explained that some of these 15 cases with deleted management lists also included individuals protected under the Missing Children Act.

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

When these records are deleted, surviving children, people with disabilities, and dementia patients cannot view related details if they go missing again after returning home, which causes difficulties in on-site search operations.

The Missing Children Act targets high-risk groups who are vulnerable to crime or whose lives could be threatened in the event of a long-term disappearance, such as children, individuals with intellectual, autistic, or mental disabilities, and dementia patients.

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

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

Among them, 141 cases were reports regarding subjects protected under the Missing Children Act.

Inspector Bu was arrested and sent to the prosecutors' office on charges of falsely closing cases for two adult missing persons who were reported missing in May and July respectively.

Both of these adult missing persons were found dead a considerable time after the reports were filed.

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

The police stated that the primary background for Inspector Bu's crimes was "apathy toward work amid fatigue caused by accumulated work pressure and heavy responsibilities."

(Photo: Yonhap News)