Woo Bum-Kon
Encyclopedia
Woo Bum-kon (February 24, 1955 – April 27, 1982) was a South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

n police officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...

 who carried out the second largest known incident of spree killing
Spree killer
A spree killer is someone who embarks on a murderous assault on two or more victims in a short time in multiple locations. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders."-Definition:According to the...

 in modern history. After the rampage concluded, 57 people (including himself) were dead and 35 were wounded in Gyeongsangnam-do
Gyeongsangnam-do
Gyeongsangnam-do is a province in the southeast of South Korea. The provincial capital is located at Changwon. It contains the major metropolitan center and port of Busan. Located there is UNESCO World Heritage Site Haeinsa, a Buddhist temple that houses the Tripitaka Koreana and attracts many...

, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

.

Life

Woo had served in the South Korean Marines
Republic of Korea Marine Corps
The Republic of Korea Marine Corps is the marine corps of the Republic of Korea...

 until 1978. In December 1980 he was hired by the National Police in Pusan and settled in the village of Torongni in December 1981, after being transferred to the local police station in Kungyu.

Uiryeong massacre

Woo had an argument with his live-in girlfriend, Chun Mal-soon, on the afternoon of April 26, 1982, after she had woken him by swatting a fly on his chest. Enraged, he left the house and went to the police station, where he reported for duty at 4 p.m., and began drinking heavily. At about 7:30 p.m. Woo returned home, punched and kicked his girlfriend and smashed the furniture, before making his way to the armory
Armory (military)
An armory or armoury is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...

. As the other officers were at a meeting, he managed unnoticed to gather an arsenal
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...

, consisting of two M2 carbines
M1 Carbine
The M1 carbine is a lightweight, easy to use semi-automatic carbine that became a standard firearm for the U.S. military during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and was produced in several variants. It was widely used by U.S...

, 180 rounds of ammunition, and seven hand grenade
Hand grenade
A hand grenade is any small bomb that can be thrown by hand. Hand grenades are classified into three categories, explosive grenades, chemical and gas grenades. Explosive grenades are the most commonly used in modern warfare, and are designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time...

s.

At approximately 9:30 p.m. Woo began shooting passers-by in a marketplace in the village of Torongni, where he also wounded Chun Mal-soon, who had gone to investigate, after hearing shots in the village. His next stop was at the post office in the nearby village of Kungryu, where he killed three phone operators and cut off the telephone lines to prevent others from calling emergency services. From that point on he proceeded from village to village, taking advantage of his position as a police officer to gain entry to the houses and shoot its inhabitants. That way Woo managed to kill 18 people in the village of Ungye, and 24 more in the village of Pyongchon. At one point, he ordered a 16-year-old boy to get him a soft drink from a grocery store. After getting what he had asked for Woo shot the boy and his family.

Woo shot most of his victims, but in one case he killed an entire family with a grenade. Although police were alerted one hour after the beginning of the killing spree, he was able to avoid capture and continue his rampage for a full eight hours. In the early hours of April 27, after rampaging through five villages in Uiryeong
Uiryeong
Uiryeong County is a county in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea. It is one of the least populated counties in Korea.In 1938, Uiryeong native Lee Byung-chull founded Samsung Group in nearby Daegu....

 county, Woo took his final two grenades and strapped them to his body
Suicide attack
A suicide attack is a type of attack in which the attacker expects or intends to die in the process.- Historical :...

. He hid in the farmhouse belonging to 68-year-old Suh In-Su, holding him and his family captive, when police finally caught up with him. As police forces were closing in, he set the grenades' fuse
Fuse (explosives)
In an explosive, pyrotechnic device or military munition, a fuse is the part of the device that initiates function. In common usage, the word fuse is used indiscriminately...

s, killing himself and three hostages. Mr. Suh himself survived gravely injured.

Altogether, with a toll of 57 dead and 35 injured, the rampage of Woo Bum-Kon was the worst killing spree in modern times before the Norway attacks of July 22, 2011
2011 Norway attacks
The 2011 Norway attacks were two sequential terrorist attacks against the government, the civilian population and a summer camp in Norway on 22 July 2011....

. Chun Mal-soon later said that her boyfriend "suffered from an inferiority complex
Inferiority complex
An inferiority complex, in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, is a feeling that one is inferior to others in some way. Such feelings can arise from an imagined or actual inferiority in the afflicted person...

 and had been bothered by villagers' comments on their living together unmarried." Later on, the provincial chief of police was suspended, and four other officers were arrested for negligence of duty.

Aftermath

The Interior Minister of South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

, Suh Chung-hwa and the national police chief, An Eung-mo, offered to resign as a form of atonement for Woo's rampage. Suh Chung-hwa, being held responsible for the incident by president Chun Doo-hwan
Chun Doo-hwan
Chun Doo-hwan was a ROK Army general and the President of South Korea from 1980 to 1988. Chun was sentenced to death in 1996 for his heavy-handed response to the Gwangju Democratization Movement, but later pardoned by President Kim Young-sam with the advice of then President-elect Kim Dae-jung,...

, lay down his office on April 29, and Roh Tae-woo
Roh Tae-woo
Roh Tae-woo , is a former ROK Army general and politician. He was the 13th president of South Korea .Roh befriended Chun Doo-hwan while in high school in Daegu. In his younger life, Roh was a keen rugby union player....

 was appointed Interior Minister.

A special parliamentary team was formed, consisting of 19 parliamentarians and led by Home Affairs Committee chairman Kim Chong-hoh, to investigate the shooting and its disastrous handling by the police. Furthermore the South Korean Cabinet decided to pay compensations to the victims and their families.

External links

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