A man in his late 20s who choked a man with a disability in his 60s unconscious at a park in Gwangju has been detained.
The Gwangju Seobu Police Station said Tuesday it had detained the suspect, identified only as A, on charges of assault and violation of the Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities.
According to police, A grabbed the victim — identified only as B, a local resident with a disability in his 60s — by the throat and choked him unconscious at a park in Hwajong-dong, Seo-gu, Gwangju, at around 4 p.m. on June 6.
A witness at the scene called 112, reporting that a young man was strangling an elderly man. Officers who responded arrested A on the spot. B briefly lost consciousness from the sudden attack but was not seriously injured and is not currently receiving hospital treatment, police said.
During the investigation, A — who works both as a restaurant cook and a shaman — told police he had choked B unconscious because he saw "something strange" above B's head.
Police determined that A posed a high risk of reoffending and fleeing, noting that the attack occurred while he was already within a repeat-offender monitoring period. They applied for an arrest warrant, which a court granted Monday.
Police said they plan to continue investigating the precise circumstances of the incident.
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