by REERA YOO | @reeraboo
editor@charactermedia.com
A man armed with a hunting rifle fatally shot three people on Friday in a city just south of Seoul before killing himself, reports Yonhap News Agency.
Police said the shooting occurred in a two-story house located in the Hwaseong district of Namyang. Inside the first-floor living room, they found the bodies of the 75-year-old gunman, surnamed Jeon, his 86-year-old brother, his sister-in-law and a policeman, who was one of the first officers to respond to the call.
The daughter-in-law of the deceased couple managed to escape the shooting by jumping off the second story before alerting the police. She is currently being treated for minor back injury.
According to the neighbors’ testimonies, Jeon had a turbulent relationship with his brother. He would often get drunk and demand money from his brother’s family. One witness, who refused to be identified, said Jeon and his sister-in-law were arguing outside the house before the gunshots sounded.
In a news conference, Hwaseong police chief Lee Seok-kwon said a suicide note was found in Jeon’s car. He added that the slain officer, who was not wearing a bulletproof vest and was only armed with a tazer, tried to talk the gunman into surrendering and was fatally shot in the chest when he attempted to enter the house.
Civilians are rarely armed with firearms as gun possession is tightly controlled in South Korea. Only those with government-issued licenses can own guns, which are usually used for hunting animals. All guns are also required to be stored at police substations and are only given to licensed owners during legal hunting periods, according to the Associated Press.
The Hawseong police said Jeon took out a hunting rifle from the station about an hour before the shooting, saying that he would return it after he finishing hunting the next day. Officers said they noticed nothing suspicious about the man when he came to retrieve the gun.
The incident comes two days after another gunman shot and killed three people in the city of Sejong before turning the gun on himself.
South Korea’s National Police Agency said it plans to tighten regulations on gun control by limiting the number of police substations that give out firearms to licensed gun owners and requiring owners to renew their license by three years, instead of five years.
As of last January, there are about 160,000 legally owned firearms in South Korea. This figure includes hunting weapons and self-defense guns, according to the National Police Agency.
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Featured image via Yonhap
