20s Man Arrested for Stabbing 70s Elderly Man with Knife at Sangbong Station

A man in his 20s was arrested on charges of wielding a weapon against a man in his 70s after a dispute over a shoulder bump at a subway platform.

Seoul Subway Line 7 Sangbong Station. [Image provided by Yonhap News]

According to the legal community on the 25th, the Seoul Northern District Court conducted a pre-arrest detention hearing (warrant review) for Mr. A, who is suspected of special injury, and issued an arrest warrant the day before.

Mr. A is accused of stabbing the thigh of Mr. B, a man in his 70s, with a weapon during an argument after bumping shoulders at the Sangbong Station platform on Line 7 of the Seoul subway in Jungnang-gu at around 3:28 p.m. on the 22nd, and fleeing the scene. Immediately after the crime, Mr. A went to the Sangbong Station platform on the Gyeongui-Jungang Line and fled by train, but was caught by the police at his home in Guri-si, Gyeonggi Province, at around 6:35 p.m., three hours later.

It was identified that Mr. A used a tool with a short blade at the tip, typically used for opening mail, as the weapon. In the police investigation, Mr. A stated, "I usually carry a knife to cut Post-its when reading books."

Based on Mr. A’s statement that "we got into a fight and I impulsively committed the crime out of anger," the police presume that this crime is not a random (senseless) crime.

The police plan to continue investigating whether Mr. A premeditated the crime through mobile phone forensics and other means.