Part 3: After the blood falls

It still bothers me that my friends were stupid enough to break up our group ... but I digress.

Oh before I continue, I was remiss in my initial posting in explaining what KATUSA means. A KATUSA soldier is a Korean Attached to the US Army. From what I read they get the posting because of English ability. They work directly with the US military, not a Korean unit. It is considered a good posting if you can get it. KATUSA boy, who hated Americans and wanted to beat them up, was assigned to work with the US military.

Because of the eye injury, and general pissiness because he had lost, DongChim insisted on going to the police station and laying charges. Even he didn't know how serious the injury was at this point. This was how HE would save face. He wanted the fight just as badly as KATUSA Boy or he would have let it go. KATUSA Boy got the last hit in so now DongChim had to "save face". He stood in the middle of the road screaming but not in pain. It was in rage over the other guy getting the last hit. THAT is why he wanted the cops. Now he was yelling about compensation.

I went with him and BumSuk to the local cop shop. The odds of actually catching them seemed pretty slim to them. (Not to me but to the Koreans, you will find out why later.) They had run off. DongChim wanted his pound of flesh from them though. I stayed around until he told his story to the police and was taken to the hospital. They also talked to BumSuk but were not interested in me. Never even took my name or any information. It was around 3:00 in the morning and I had to catch the 6AM bus.

When I got back to the apartment I talked with my friends about what had happened. That is when we pieced everything together, from what had we understood of what had been said. I was informed of the assholes reason at the police station. They wanted to beat up Americans or at the least their Korean friends. I headed off to my room to shower and catch a little sleep. At this point I thought the story was over.

While I was home a lot more happened, that I wasn't told about. The third or fourth day I was home BumSuk sent an email lamenting the fact that they couldn't catch the guys because they didn't know them. To which I replied why not? Are you an idiot? (Time would show that yes he is but that is another story.) We know one of them works at Immigration. Thus, because of me, the saga continued. I don't know if I was wise to do that or not. It might have been better to just let it die.

The police showed up at Immigration the next day with our Korean friends. They ID'd Immigration boy and he was hauled off by the police for questioning. Being the cowardly piece of shit he is he quickly turned KATUSA boy in to the cops.

Have you ever dealt with the Korean police? You should read Metropolitician's tale of woe. I wasn't surprised by his problem because the same sort of bullshit happened to my friends. My eyes were really opened to just how much of a "law and order" country Korea is, that there is NO self-defense law, and that foreigners don't count.

The first thing the police did was ONLY bring in the Koreans involved in the incident, along with the ATTACKERS family members. Then they put them all in a room together. The family members of our antagonists proceeded to try and intimidate and threaten our friends into dropping the charges. The threats would continue outside the police station. The police even gave my friends phone number to the assholes families. They harassed our friends a lot. Of course the assholes lied to the police about what happened. Over the period of a month they would change their story 9 times. The police were considering charging our friends instead of them at one point. The ONLY reason they didn't was the eye injury. Throughout the whole month of "investigation" the police never once got the foreigners statement. One of my friends was told that our statements didn't matter.

This led to two more lessons. First, and this is an important one if you ever get into a fight in Korea. There is NO self-defense law. None. Nada. Zip. In the case of a fight the most injured party is the aggrieved EVEN if the other person started it. Even if you go to help someone, say a woman being beaten by a man. For the apologists who may be reading, yes the Korean courts did decide ONCE to rule in the favour of a KOREAN man who came to a KOREAN womans defense. ONCE. We aren't Koreans. Which is directly tied to the next lesson I learned.

Foreigners don't count. Even though we were witness/participants to what happened the police didn't want to talk to us. We were ignored and avoided. When everyone was hauled in for questioning it was everyone except the foreigners. When Hilda went to the police with a Korean to interpret and said "What about my statement?" She was told "You are a foreigner. Your statement doesn't matter. We have the statement of the Koreans involved." The Korean who translated for her knows English well enough that there was no mistake in translating what was said.

Immigration boy bears further mention at this point too. I don't know whose knob his mother was polishing but I heard she breezed into the police station like she owned it. The cops kissed her ass. This is why the gave out our friends phone numbers. He was actually doing his military service at Immigration when this happened which from what I was told is not an easy post to get. (Always nice when you have someone who hates foreigners working for Immigration. Kind of like having someone who hates Americans in KATUSA.)

... to be continued ...