- This is a Korean name; the family name is Woo.
Woo Bum-kon (or Wou Bom-kon) (February 24, 1955 - April 27, 1982) was a Korean police officer who carried out the largest known incident of spree killing in modern history. After the rampage concluded, 58 people (including himself) were dead and 35 were wounded in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea. [1]
Contents:
1. Uiryeong massacre
2. Resignation of the Interior
Minister
3. See also
4. References
5. External links
| Woo Bum-kon | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Woo Bum-kon |
| Born | February 24, 1955 Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea |
| Died |
April 27, 1982 (aged 27) |
| Cause of Death | Suicide |
| Penalty | died before being given penalty |
| Killings | |
| Date | April 26/27, 1982 |
| Location(s) | Uiryeong, South Korea |
| Killed | 57 |
| Injured | 35 |
| Weapon(s) | Two M2
carbines hand grenades |
| Woo Bum-kon | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 우범곤 |
| Hanja | 禹範坤 |
| Revised Romanization | U Beom-gon |
| McCune-Reischauer | U Pǒmgon |
1. Uiryeong massacre
Woo had an argument with his live-in girlfriend, Chun Mal-soon, on the afternoon of April 26, 1982. Enraged, he left the house and went to the police armory while other officers were at a meeting, where he began drinking heavily. After becoming intoxicated, he gathered an arsenal including a rifle and some grenades. He left the armory around dinner time armed and drunk. Initially, he killed three operators at the local telephone exchange to prevent others from calling emergency services. He then walked from house to house and used his position as a police officer to make people feel safe and gain entry into their homes. He shot most of his victims, but in one case he killed an entire family with a grenade. He continued this pattern for a full eight hours.
After Woo had shot a number of people in one village, he would resume the spree killing in a nearby village. In the early hours of April 27, after rampaging through five villages in Uiryeong county, Woo took his final two grenades and strapped them to his body. He then held three people captive and then set the grenades' fuses, killing both himself and his final victims. Altogether, with a toll of 58 dead and 35 injured, the rampage of Woo Bum-Kon is the highest record killing spree in modern times. Chun Mal-soon later said that her boyfriend "suffered from an inferiority complex and had been bothered by villagers' comments on their living together unmarried." Later on, the provincial chief of police was suspended, and four other officers were arrested for negligence of duty.