Public advertising expert Lee Je-seok conducts a guerrilla public awareness campaign outside the Jeju Western Police Station using a CCTV prop. [Captured from YouTube channel 'Lee Je-seok's Advertising Archive']
Public advertising expert Lee Je-seok conducts a guerrilla public awareness campaign outside the Jeju Western Police Station using a CCTV prop. [Captured from YouTube channel 'Lee Je-seok's Advertising Archive']

A guerrilla public awareness campaign featuring a closed-circuit television camera pointed at a police station has drawn widespread attention amid growing controversy over Jeju police's handling of a long-term missing persons case.

The Lee Je-seok Advertising Research Institute, run by public advertising expert Lee Je-seok, carried out the campaign Sunday in the Hallim-eup area of Jeju and outside the Jeju Western Police Station, according to Yonhap.

The campaign turned the lens of a CCTV — ordinarily used to monitor citizens and deter crime — toward the police themselves, conveying the message that public authorities must also be subject to citizen oversight and accountability.

A non-functional CCTV prop was installed at the site. The accompanying advertisement showed a woman gazing past the camera while onlookers watched, with the message: "The public is watching."

The installation was placed outside the Jeju Western Police Station and near a palm tree farm in Hallim-eup, where the body of a woman in her 30s, identified by her surname Jang, was found after she had been reported missing for an extended period.

The prop and advertisement were removed the same day after the one-day guerrilla campaign concluded.

The campaign was conceived amid controversy over the police's mishandling of the Jang case.

It later emerged that the officer assigned to the case had falsely closed the missing persons report and deleted Jang's information from the police system, fueling widespread criticism of the initial police response and the conduct of the missing persons investigation.

The controversy deepened when it was found that, while the investigation stalled, a significant number of nearby CCTV recordings that could have traced Jang's last known movements had been deleted after their retention periods expired.

"Rather than targeting any specific individual, we focused on satirizing the loopholes in the system and the question of accountability," the Lee Je-seok Advertising Research Institute said.

Jang's body was discovered in Hallim-eup, Jeju, on Monday — 104 days after she was reported missing.

The officer at the center of the case, a corporal in his 30s assigned to the Jeju Western Police Station identified only as A, has been taken into detention on charges including dereliction of duty, falsification of electronic public records, and obstruction of official duties by deception. The case is expected to be transferred to prosecutors shortly.

The Jeju District Prosecutors Office designated the head of its first criminal division as lead prosecutor on Monday and formed a dedicated investigative team to handle the case.

Once the case is transferred, prosecutors plan to scrutinize the officer's motive, any additional instances of falsely closed cases, and whether further victims exist, based on the police investigation records.


betterj@heraldcorp.com