Officer A, detained in connection with the Jeju missing-persons false-closure case, is transferred from Jeju Eastern Police Station to prosecutors on Tuesday. The Jeju Provincial Police Agency referred the case to prosecutors that day. [Yonhap]
Officer A, detained in connection with the Jeju missing-persons false-closure case, is transferred from Jeju Eastern Police Station to prosecutors on Tuesday. The Jeju Provincial Police Agency referred the case to prosecutors that day. [Yonhap]

A Jeju police officer detained and referred to prosecutors over the falsification of missing-persons case closures deleted or failed to enter management records not only for adult cases but also for high-risk groups including children, people with mental disabilities and dementia patients, an investigation has found. The officer, identified only as A, told police he "thought little of it because the missing persons were ordinary adults" — but the deletion of records involving children and dementia patients has laid bare the full extent of the negligence.

According to Yonhap and the Jeju Provincial Police Agency on Wednesday, Officer A deleted or failed to enter 63 records in the missing-persons profiling system's management log, and multiple entries among them were confirmed to involve people protected under the Act on the Protection and Support of Missing Children.

The missing-persons profiling system is a police management tool used to enter and retrieve information on missing individuals when cases are reported.

Of the 63 cases, 15 were resolved normally — local officers had located the missing persons immediately upon receiving the reports — but Officer A, who was in charge of the missing-persons team, was found to have entered and then arbitrarily deleted the management log entries for all 15.

Police said some of the 15 deleted entries also involved individuals protected under the missing children act.

Management log records can only be deleted when a missing person is confirmed dead, and once deleted they cannot be retrieved. If a surviving child, person with a disability or dementia patient goes missing again after returning home, officers at the scene would have no access to prior case information, complicating search efforts.

The Act on the Protection and Support of Missing Children covers high-risk groups — including children, people with intellectual, autistic or mental disabilities, and dementia patients — who are vulnerable to crime or whose lives may be endangered if they remain missing for an extended period.

Unlike reports involving adult missing persons, cases under the act must be reported immediately to the head of the relevant police station so that a full-scale search can be launched, and no one may access the subjects' records without authorization.

Officer A was found to have unilaterally closed 298 cases during his time with the missing-persons team at Jeju Western Police Station, from March last year through July. Of those, 141 involved individuals protected under the missing children act.

Officer A was detained and referred to prosecutors on charges of falsely closing cases involving two adult missing persons reported in May and July, respectively. Both were found dead a considerable time after they were reported missing.

Beyond the two confirmed false closures, police referred an additional 10 suspected false closures and 15 management log deletions for investigation.

Police had earlier disclosed Officer A's statement that he "thought little of it because the missing persons were ordinary adults," saying the primary motive behind the misconduct was "work negligence driven by accumulated workload and fatigue from mounting responsibilities."


yeonjoo7@heraldcorp.com