Kim Jong-cheol to chair national police commanders' meeting

Calls for 'complete redesign' of police operations

Kim Jong-cheol, newly appointed deputy commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency who is serving as acting commissioner general, arrives at the South Gyeongsang Provincial Police Agency in Changwon on Wednesday. [Yonhap]
Kim Jong-cheol, newly appointed deputy commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency who is serving as acting commissioner general, arrives at the South Gyeongsang Provincial Police Agency in Changwon on Wednesday. [Yonhap]

Kim Jong-cheol, the newly appointed acting commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, will visit the site of a long-term missing-persons case in Jeju as his first field trip since taking office.

The visit comes amid a crisis of public trust in police following a series of botched responses to missing-persons cases. Kim aims to inspect the scene directly and signal his commitment to preventing a recurrence.

Kim will formally begin his duties Thursday morning by chairing a national police commanders' meeting at 9 a.m. at the agency's Oulim courtyard in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, according to the Korean National Police Agency on Wednesday.

All 18 provincial and metropolitan police chiefs from across the country will attend, including 14 newly appointed chiefs.

After the meeting, Kim will travel to Jeju to pay his respects at the funeral of a missing-persons victim, then visit a palm tree farm in Hallim-eup, Jeju, where the victim was found, to personally review the initial response and search process.

He will then receive a briefing at the Jeju Provincial Police Agency on how the missing-persons cases were handled and what measures are being taken to prevent a recurrence.

His decision to visit Jeju on his first day in office signals his intent to fix the flawed case-handling and command-and-oversight failures that came to light after a long-term missing-persons case was falsely closed.

In Jeju, a woman in her 30s who went missing in May was found dead 104 days after the initial report was filed.

The officer in charge of the case, identified only as Officer A, was arrested and referred to prosecutors on charges including falsely entering the woman as deceased in the police database after closing the case without confirming her safety.

In another missing-persons case that Officer A closed in a similar manner, a man in his 60s was found dead 51 days after being reported missing.

The agency has been conducting a comprehensive review of approximately 310,000 missing-persons cases from the past three years in the wake of the Jeju incidents. It is also establishing a procedure requiring supervisory approval before an officer can close a case.

Kim is expected to order the Jeju Provincial Police Agency's leadership to thoroughly investigate the facts and overhaul the entire missing-persons response system.

Speaking at the South Gyeongsang Provincial Police Agency on Wednesday, Kim referenced the cases and said, "I worry that public distrust of police investigations and administration may have passed a tipping point," adding, "There is a need to go through every aspect of police work — to the point where I would call it a complete 'redesign.'"


mokiya@heraldcorp.com