Newsletter

From malicious comments to new releases… Gimpo City “Legal response to death of public servant”

A public servant in Gimpo City who suffered from complaints and whose personal information was made public in an online cafe was found dead. Gimpo City has decided to take legal action against cafe users who have been criticizing the deceased public servant.

Reporter Choi Seung-hoon covered the story.

<기자>

Enlarge image

These are posts posted on an online cafe on the night of the 29th of last month.

They are criticizing Gimpo City for causing inconvenience due to congestion on Gimpo Hangang-ro due to road digging repair work.

A comment was posted saying, ‘The public servant in question is said to have left work’ and ‘I want to grab this person by the collar while he is resting at home,’ and comments continued.

Enlarge image

In particular, one comment stated that public servant A was in charge of the repair work, and even his name, position, department, and phone number were revealed.

Yesterday, five days after these posts were posted, Mr. A was found dead in his car parked on the road near his home in Seo-gu, Incheon.

Inside the car, circumstances emerged where an extreme choice was made.

It was reported that a message was found on Mr. A’s personal computer that said, “Recent road construction is difficult.”

Mr. A was appointed in 2022 and has been in charge of road repair work for a year and a half.

My department often worked overtime due to many complaints related to road damage and traffic congestion, and was known as a department to be avoided even among public officials.

[소속 부서 동료 : 해빙기다 보니까 민원이 좀 몰려 있었죠. 힘들다고는 했어요. 업무도 잘 했고….]

The Gimpo City Hall Civil Servants’ Labor Union claimed that Mr. A had been suffering psychologically due to continued protest calls and malicious complaints.

[유세연/김포시청 공무원노동조합 위원장 : 이렇게 좌표 찍기 식으로 어떤 집단이 그 사람을 공격할 수 있도록 유도를 했다는 게 너무 악의적이지 않나….]

Gimpo City announced that it has decided to investigate the truth and report online cafe users to the police and is collecting relevant evidence.

(Video reporting: Lee Sang-hak, Video editing: Jeon Min-gyu, VJ: Noh Jae-min)