A man in his 20s who threatened an internet broadcaster with a knife in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, and injured a police officer trying to stop him has been referred to prosecutors while in custody. Police added a charge of retaliatory threat when they sent the case forward.
The Ansan Sangnok Police Station said on the 21st that it had referred the suspect, a former manager identified only as A, to prosecutors in custody on charges of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (retaliatory threat), special confinement, aggravated assault with a weapon and preparation for murder. A is accused of going to a restaurant in Sangnok District, Ansan, at about 5:30 p.m. on the 12th, where a female streamer identified as B was broadcasting, holding a knife to her neck and injuring her by throwing hot water on her. He is also alleged to have swung the knife at an officer who moved to subdue him, causing injury.
Police received two calls from witnesses, at 5:21 p.m. and 5:26 p.m., reporting that a man was beating a woman. When the calls confirmed both the presence of a knife and a woman screaming, police issued a Code Zero alert, the highest level in their response manual, and sent about 30 officers and a police special operations unit to the scene.
When officers arrived, A was holding the knife to B's neck, and they ordered him repeatedly to drop it, but he refused. Officers approached him while pretending to hand him water and subdued him the moment he shifted the knife to his other hand. Two Taser rounds were fired during the operation, and the officer who first moved to restrain A suffered a cut about 4 centimeters long on the right palm from the knife. About 30 minutes passed between the first call and the arrest.
A had previously worked as a manager running the chat room for B's broadcasts but quit after the two fell out, according to police. The two then traded insults in the chat room, and A carried out the attack out of spite after a broadcast showed B asking the cyber police agency how to file a criminal complaint, the police investigation found.
Prosecutors plan to continue investigating A based on the case referred to them.
