November 5, 1955 - Woo Bum-kon
A single night's rampage across four South Korean villages left 56 dead and dozens wounded, making this one of the deadliest acts of mass violence carried out by one person in the twentieth century. The perpetrator's position as a police officer gave him access to the weapons used and may have shaped the inadequate institutional response that followed. The political fallout — resignations, suspensions, a formal commission — reflected how severely the incident exposed failures within South Korea's law enforcement and government structures of the era.
From Wikipedia
The Woo Bum-kon incident (Korean: 우범곤 사건) also known as the Uiryeong shooting incident (의령 총기 사건) or Officer Woo incident (우 순경 사건), was a spree killing that occurred during the night from April 26 to April 27, 1982, in Uiryeong County, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. Policeman Woo Bum-kon murdered 56 people and wounded around 35 others in four villages using two stolen rifles and explosives. Woo killed himself in a suicide bombing with three hostages before a police response.
In the aftermath of the attack, several high-profile South Korean politicians resigned or were suspended, and a commission was formed to assess the handling of the massacre by the police. In 2024, a memorial to the victims of the attack was established in Uiryeong.
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