Charges of Occupational Negligence Resulting in Death and Dereliction of Duty
Police officers who were under investigation for negligent duty in connection with the case of a missing woman found dead in a patrol car during last summer's heatwave warning have been referred to the prosecution.
The Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Unit of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency announced on May 7 that, after investigating five individuals involved in the case for occupational negligence resulting in death and dereliction of duty, two officers?Inspector A and Senior Inspector B?will be referred for prosecution.
However, the agency decided not to refer Inspector C, who failed to check the back seat during the patrol car handover and thus did not discover the victim, as well as Inspector D and Senior Inspector E, who did not conduct vehicle patrols. The agency concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish occupational negligence resulting in death for these three officers.
Officer A is accused of failing to lock the patrol car doors after completing his shift, while Officer B is accused of omitting to record the situation when the woman visited the police substation shortly before her death.
Previously, on August 17, 2024, at around 2:00 p.m., a woman in her 40s was found dead in the back seat of a patrol car parked at the Jingyo Police Substation of the Hadong Police Station in Gyeongsangnam-do.
This woman had entered the unlocked patrol car at around 2:00 a.m. the previous day. Unable to open the door from inside due to the absence of an interior handle and separated from the front seat by a security partition, she remained trapped in the back seat for 36 hours before passing away.
During this period, it was revealed that the officers on duty did not conduct area patrols, check the cleanliness of the patrol car, or confirm the proper functioning of the breathalyzer device inside the vehicle.
Although officers are required to lock vehicle doors when parking or stopping, it was confirmed that the patrol car was left unlocked after being used at 4:56 p.m. on August 15, 2024.
At the time, two officers were assigned to monitor the situation inside the substation and two were on standby duty. However, as they were resting in the second-floor duty room and the first-floor meeting room, none of them noticed the woman pulling and shaking the substation door three times before entering the patrol car.
According to regulations, the officer on situation duty must sit in a position where the first-floor entrance is visible, and standby officers must be able to respond within 10 minutes while resting inside the substation.
The initial autopsy found that the woman died around 2:00 p.m. on August 16, 2024, approximately 12 hours after entering the vehicle.
It was pointed out that if the officers had properly conducted the designated patrols between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., and 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. on August 16, or if they had properly executed the shift change at 8:30 a.m. that day, the woman could have been discovered earlier.
The Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency transferred 13 of the 16 Jingyo Police Substation staff members?excluding three who were on leave?and has continued investigating those involved since September 2024.
A police official explained, "We made a comprehensive decision based not only on the internal opinions of the investigation team but also after convening an investigation review committee composed of 11 legal experts, including lawyers and university professors, to gather opinions."
The police plan to determine whether to impose disciplinary action and at what level on those not referred for prosecution through a future audit.
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