Children of U.S. Soldiers Throw Bottle at Moving Bus

A series of crimes committed by U.S. soldiers and their children threaten Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.

The Uijeongbu police investigated two privates from the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and referred a fugitive private to the U.S. military police for identification on charges of assaulting a taxi driver and two Korean citizens.

According to the police, the private and other soldiers jumped onto a taxi that was waiting for a green signal at a crosswalk and acted violently on the night of July 15 in Uijeongbu city. They assaulted the taxi driver who tried to stop them, and attacked two other citizens who also tried to hold them back.

The police questioned privates T and J, and sent them to the U.S. military police. They will further investigate the fugitive soldier next week.

Three days earlier, three U.S. soldiers beat a passerby with a beer bottle and ran away. They surrendered to U.S. military police after eight days and were booked without detention.

Around 11:00 p.m. on July 16, drunken American teenagers threw a liquor bottle at a running bus on a road in front of the ministry of defense in Yongsan, Seoul, and broke the windshield. No one was injured.

The bus driver, identified as Cho, said, “While I was driving the bus with passengers on board, one of a group of drunken Americans sitting on the sidewalk suddenly threw a liquor bottle at my windshield.”

The police caught three suspects on the scene and questioned them before sending them back. They will refer another one that three suspects appointed as the offender to the U.S. military police for identification.

Kyung-Hyun Nam bibulus@donga.com mint4a@donga.com