'Police misconduct cannot be dismissed as individual deviation'

Lawmaker also says public housing at Yongsan Children's Park 'worth considering'

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Young-bae [Yonhap]
Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Young-bae [Yonhap]

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Young-bae on Wednesday criticized the controversy over the falsely closed missing-persons case involving Jang Mi-ran, calling it "a systemic failure" and saying supervisors had no mechanism in place to review, receive reports on or approve case closures.

Speaking on SBS Radio's "Kim Tae-hyun's Politics Show" that day, Kim said the officer who closed the case had handled 298 missing-persons cases in the 17 months since being assigned to the post, and that the bodies of two people whose cases had already been closed were subsequently found.

"Given that the public is this concerned, and given that police now exercise full investigative authority, the entire system needs to be overhauled from the ground up," he added.

Pushing back against suggestions that the incident amounted to individual misconduct, Kim said it was unacceptable for missing-persons cases to go unsolved or be closed without any review or sign-off from a superior officer. "Is it not dangerous to leave the exercise of public authority entirely to individual discretion?" he asked.

Kim drew a line against criticism that the recurring controversies surrounding police justified abolishing supplementary investigative powers. "It seems the argument always circles back to supplementary investigative powers and prosecutors," he said. "This is a missing-persons case, not a criminal investigation."

He strongly criticized attempts to reframe the issue as a debate over supplementary investigative powers, saying it amounted to exploiting public concern to advance a self-serving agenda.

Meanwhile, Kim, who chairs the Democratic Party's Seoul chapter, said public housing construction at the recently controversial Yongsan Children's Park was "worth considering." He noted that the full park covers 2.97 million square meters, while the children's garden section alone accounts for one-tenth of that, or 297,000 square meters. "The proposal is not to use the entire area — the rest would remain parkland," he said. "Building well-designed youth housing on about 10 percent of the planned park area is something worth considering."

On author Yu Si-min's recent remarks describing the current administration as an "arrogant power," which have stirred controversy within the party, Kim said publicly criticizing a sitting president would only damage the party's own coalition. "The terms Yu uses are in no way helpful to our side's victory," he said.


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