Daytime Assault on Teacher Inside Daedeok-gu Gyogo
Series of Murder Threat Posts Emerging
On the 4th, an incident occurred at a school in the Daejeon area where a teacher was stabbed with a weapon in broad daylight. Meanwhile, posts predicting murder have continued to appear on social networking services (SNS), increasing public anxiety.
On the morning of the 5th, Yonhap News interviewed citizens at the waiting area in front of Daejeon Station who were watching news about the teacher assault incident at a high school in Daedeok-gu and the Seohyeon Station incident in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on a large monitor.
A man in his 60s, Mr. A, said, "My nephew who lives overseas is coming to visit, and after seeing the news, I was so shocked and worried that even though he is an adult, I went out to pick him up."
Park In-ok (48), who came to see off her younger sibling, said, "This kind of incident happening in Daejeon, not even in the densely populated metropolitan area, makes me feel like there is nowhere safe anymore," adding, "I have young children in elementary school and kindergarten, so I am not letting them go outside."
The night before the teacher assault incident, the Dunsan-dong academy district was congested with academy vehicles and parents picking up their children after classes ended, causing traffic jams on the surrounding roads.
On local mom cafes, posts such as "I flinch and get startled when I see a man passing by in front of the apartment entrance," "I get tense the moment I see someone wearing a hat pulled down at night," and "I ordered a self-defense spray" have been posted one after another.
On the 4th, there was also a report of an unidentified man wandering around with a weapon in Galma-dong, prompting police to respond. The Daejeon Police Agency unusually posted a message saying, "There is no suspicion of a crime, so please rest assured."
A police official said, "The man in question is a foreign national residing in Korea who borrowed a knife from a friend's house to prepare duck meat and was confirmed to have returned home holding it without any ill intent."
Recently, as public anxiety grew due to posts predicting murder imitating 'random killings,' the Daejeon and Sejong Police Agency decided to deploy tactical armored vehicles and police special forces at Daejeon Station, Costco Sejong branch, and the Government Complex Sejong as part of special security operations. Special security operations are measures where police manpower and equipment are intensively deployed at the discretion of the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency when it is judged that maintaining security through routine daily policing is difficult. This is the first time such a measure has been implemented.
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