Monday, March 20, 2006

Crazed Korean



I was awoken to screams of agony and anger accompanied by loud thuds last night. My bedroom widow had been left open just a bit in the hopes of getting a better sleep. Now the sounds of the crazed man were pouring through the crack.

Initially, I just lay there in bed hoping the drunken idiot would stop banging around, but as I waited, things only started to sound worse. Reluctantly, I forced myself out of bed and walked over to my window. A mere block away from my bedroom I could see the man stumbling back and fourth now clutching a large object in his hand.

Lights in the surrounding apartments flickered on but no one said a word. I had always wanted to yell something at a belligerent on the street in the middle of the night. I tried to muster the most manly, aggressive and threatening voice I could but let out startlingly weak, hoarse, croaking "Hey! Shut the F..." My girlfriend snickered under her breath. I cleared my throat and was much more convincing the second time around though my words didn't even phase the stranger.

By this point the man was throwing anything he could at the car in front of him, occasionally taking a break to go a vomit. I heard windows shattering and bricks bouncing off the metal, each destructive action executed with a shrill, painstaking scream. What was I doing just sitting here watching this all happen? I was missing grade A footage for my blog!

I grabbed my camera (the one with the broken screen.... arrrrggg!) and bolted for the door. As soon as I stepped outside the police arrived so I decided to loop around the back. I moved stealthily through the crisp night air and took up a position on the corner. Hiding behind some bushes, I pointed my camera through the hole at the bottom.

Unfortunately, none of the night footage was any good, only the flashing police lights can be made out clearly. Nothing too extraordinary happened anyways. The most surprising thing about the whole incident was how the police handled it. The man as clearly aggressive and wasn't even incapacitated though he pushed the officers around a few times. Then his wife or girlfriend came out and he smacked her around too, right in front of them! All officers did was tell them him to stop when he continued to sporadically abuse her. The wife beater would have been allowed to go back to bed however, soon the cops had enough of his misbehavior and took him to the station in the front seat of their curser. He was back on the street and being belligerent within hours.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

the only kinda korean shouting i get in my neighborhood are the guy slowly driving by with speaker on the roof: "strawberries......apples........pears....."

Krista said...

jeez, i've seen something similar in good 'ol Doryang (wife beating in front of cops included), but I'd managed to mentally block it out or something. Remembering it all and hearing your account ALMOST makes me not want to go back to stupid Korea. ...stupid Korea!
AND I had apparently also blocked out the fruit speakers...which almost makes me regret my decision to come back even more! ;)

traci said...

DAMN. i just watched the video. he must have been pissed! those windows didnt break that easily.
as for the cops doing nothing about it. im pretty sure its the same in the states--if a victim refuses to press charges, there's nothing the cops can do. it's hard for a woman to leave an abusive husband at home but here it has to be 10 times harder.