Korean Court Hands Down Penalties in Three Alcohol-Related Police Cases
A district court imposed suspended prison terms and a fine in three cases involving an assault on an officer, refusal of a breath test and drunken obstruction of police duties.
A South Korean district court has handed down penalties in three separate alcohol-related cases involving assaults on police officers, refusal of a breathalyzer test and obstruction of official duties.
In the first case, the Chuncheon District Court sentenced a 59-year-old defendant to six months in prison, suspended for one year, for obstructing official duties. The defendant had been lying intoxicated on a street in Suwon's Yeongtong District around midnight on May 16 when an officer arrived in response to a report. After the officer shook the defendant's leg in an effort to wake the person, the defendant became angry and kicked the officer in the face.
A second defendant, aged 56, received a prison term of one year and four months, suspended for three years, after refusing a police request to take a breath test. Officers had been dispatched to a traffic accident report at a hot spring parking lot in Chuncheon on the morning of Feb. 20.
According to the court account, the defendant smelled of alcohol, spoke with slurred speech and walked unsteadily. The person nevertheless rejected repeated requests to undergo testing for about 25 minutes, questioning why the test was necessary after leaving the hot spring.
The third case involved a 27-year-old defendant charged with drunk driving and obstruction of official duties. The court imposed a fine of 10 million won. The defendant drove about two meters in an apartment parking lot in Hongcheon County on the night of May 20 while having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.160 percent.
After being stopped in a sobriety crackdown, the defendant blocked officers as they prepared to leave, shouted abuse and pushed them in the chest. The conduct led to charges under the Road Traffic Act as well as for interfering with police work.
The court said all three defendants admitted their offenses, a factor considered in determining their sentences. It also weighed the seriousness of conduct that undermines public authority or obstructs the lawful performance of official duties. The rulings underscore that even incidents arising from relatively brief encounters can produce criminal penalties when intoxication is accompanied by violence, refusal to comply with lawful testing or interference with officers.