CHANGWON — Two police officers and two paramedics charged over the death of an intoxicated woman whose mouth they stuffed with a towel to stop her from harming herself have been acquitted in a first trial. Seven jurors in a citizen participation trial returned a unanimous not-guilty verdict.
The Changwon District Court's Criminal Division 4, presided over by Chief Judge Oh Dae-seok, acquitted two police officers and two firefighting officials charged with professional negligence resulting in death. The citizen participation trial was held at the defendants' request.
The incident took place in the early hours of Aug. 26, 2022, in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province. The officers responded at about 1:58 a.m. to an emergency call reporting a woman lying in the street, and found a woman in her 40s, identified as C, asleep and heavily intoxicated. When she struck an officer and grabbed him by the collar as they urged her to go home, police arrested her at about 2:08 a.m. on suspicion of obstructing official duties.
C resisted by banging her head against the ground and a wall, and after her request to have her handcuffs removed was refused, she said, "Then I'll have to bite my tongue and die," and bit her tongue. One officer was injured when she bit his finger as he put it in her mouth, and an attempt to have her bite down on an LED whistle also failed. Police ultimately pushed a towel measuring 80 centimeters by 40 centimeters, obtained from a convenience store, into her mouth.
The paramedics, who arrived at about 2:19 a.m., suggested replacing the towel with gauze, but police refused, citing concerns that she would resume harming herself. At about 2:27 a.m., the paramedics suspected cardiac arrest, removed the towel and administered CPR and a defibrillator. C died of obstructive asphyxiation at a hospital in Busan on Sept. 17 of that year.
Prosecutors argued that the officers ignored signs of breathing difficulty and continued pushing the towel in, and that the paramedics failed to check her vital signs or remove the towel.
The court found that the evidence submitted by prosecutors did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants had neglected their professional duty of care.
"It is difficult to conclude that placing a towel in her mouth to quickly and effectively stop her from harming herself significantly exceeded the discretion granted to police officers," the court said. It added that "it would not have been easy to determine on the spot whether the subsiding of the victim's resistance was due to asphyxiation or to psychological calm from resignation." The court also took into account that police had no guidelines or equipment for responding to self-harm. On the cyanosis that prosecutors cited, it found there was no objective evidence, and that the view that cyanosis is a biomarker indicating cardiac arrest is not generally accepted in the medical community.
On the paramedics, the court said, "Having arrived later, the paramedics had little choice but to follow the instructions and information of the police officers who were controlling the scene," and did not find a breach of the duty of care. It also noted that they had considered alternatives such as an oropharyngeal airway (OPA). The court further cited the opinion of medical experts who took part in the assessment that "even doctors with specialized medical knowledge, had they been deployed to the scene at the time, would not have found it easy to decide to immediately remove the towel and secure the victim's airway."
The court said it was "appropriate to respect the unanimous verdict reached by jurors selected through a rigorous screening process on the basis of sound common sense and reasonable judgment."
