HOME
>
Main Activities
>
Press Releases
Press Releases
프린트
SNS URL 공유하기 레이어 열기
Police Negligence in Reconstruction of a Traffic Accident Causes Secondary Injury
Date : 2007.03.29 00:00:00
Hits : 1203
A person sustained secondary injury due to the failure of a police officer dispatched to the scene of a traffic accident to take proper safety measures to prevent any additional accident. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) requested the Korean Bar Association to provide legal aid so that the victim may receive appropriate relief.
The victim merely known as Choi (male, 11, fifth-grader) bumped against a truck while riding bicycle downhill at his school’s back gate on September 22, 2006. The police officer who rushed to the scene of the accident requested the victim to reconstruct the accident. In the process, the victim crashed into the truck again, suffering a secondary injury (a left distal radioulnar fracture) requiring five weeks’ medical treatment. The victim’s mother (known as Kim, 43) filed a complaint with the Commission in October 2006 since the police officer did not acknowledge his negligence
According to the Commission’s findings, (i) the police officer isolated and excluded the complainant from the site of the accident on grounds that the parties to the traffic accident made conflicting arguments and that the complainant was overexcited and interfered with the accident investigation, notwithstanding that the police officer should have involved related persons in the investigation at the accident site to ensure trust and objectivity; and (ii) the respondent conducted on-site reconstruction of the accident without taking proper safety precautions to prevent any further accident involving the vehicle in question and other vehicles when conducting the on-site investigation under Subparagraph 3, Article 4 of the Traffic Accident Handling Guidelines.
Regarding the findings, the dispatched police officer contended that he let the truck remain at the original accident site to accurately recreate the situation and walked down the downward slope with the victim in order to identify circumstances leading to the accident and take necessary photographs because the parties involved in the accident had made conflicting arguments. However, according to the police officer, the victim suddenly jumped on his bicycle, collided against the truck again and fell down, causing another unexpected injury. The police officer expressed his regret and pity to the complainant and promised to provide medical treatment to the victim.
The Commission determined that the respondent’s act of letting the victim sustain a secondary injury requiring five weeks’ medical treatment was a result of his lack of sense of responsibility and negligence in the performance of his duties and that he violated the right to physical safety under Article 12 of the Constitution. Accordingly, the Commission requested the Korean Bar Association to provide legal aid to ensure that the complainant (victim) would receive appropriate compensation for damages.
