Police close message board following coercive probe allegations

This screen capture of the Hwaseong Dongtan Police Station's homepage shows a notification that informs users that a message board has been closed, advising them to instead submit inquiries or complaints to a separate government-run website. (Hwaseong Dongtan Police Station)

A local police station recently shut down an open message board on its website after a barrage of complaints concerning allegations of an officer's coercive investigation into a wrongly accused man.

As of Wednesday, the page that had previously functioned as a general forum accessible to anyone has disappeared from the website of the Hwaseong Dongtan Police Station that serves the city of Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. Users are referred to a government-run website for placing police complaints.

The timing of the forum being closed has fueled suspicions, especially since complaints over the widely publicized case had been pouring in over questionable investigation methods of the person who turned out to be an innocent man.

The police branch has come under fire for last month's wrongful accusation of a 20-year-old man for sexual molestation, the investigation for which was ceased when the accuser admitted to falsely filing the report. But a recording revealed by the wrongly accused showed that officials had addressed him in what could be perceived as a disrespectful manner that was coercive and intimidating. He also revealed that he never received an apology from police after being proven innocent, instead receiving a text message saying the charges had been dropped.

Officials at the Dongtan station have countered that the recent complaints did not have anything to do with the board being discontinued, and the measure was simply due to government guidelines encouraging state-run organizations to unify the method of receiving civil complaints.

Several police stations with individual homepages have closed their open forums, including those in Mapo-gu, Jongno and Gangnam in Seoul. But many stations in Gyeonggi Province, including Hwaseong Seobu Station in the same city, have kept their message boards open while advising users to submit inquiries to the government website for police comments.

Osan Police Station, Bundang Police Station and Yongin Police Station are also among the Gyeonggi Province stations keeping their message boards open as of Wednesday.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)