Shooting spree premeditated: Army

The reserve soldier who carried out Wednesday’s shooting spree at a Seoul military training camp had deliberately planned the attack and sent mobile messages bearing signs of suicide to a friend, the Army said Thursday.

The 23-year-old reservist, surnamed Choi, had asked to be placed in the first firing line to make it easy for him to aim at colleagues, the Army said. After receiving a magazine with 10 rounds for a K-2 rifle, he fired one at the target then suddenly turn around to fire seven more, killing two and wounding two others before committing suicide. 

“We are still looking into his motive, but at this point we assess that it was a premeditated crime,” Col. Lee Tae-myung, chief of the Army’s central investigation division, told reporters as he unveiled the interim findings of the case.

Over the past two months, Choi had sent some 10 text messages indicating his intent to kill himself to a friend only identified by his surname Kim, who went to the same elementary and middle schools as his, Lee said.

“I will be gone by May 12, good bye,” reads a dispatch sent on April 22, referring to the day he entered the camp in southern Seoul for three-day training. Another message dated May 5 said, “It’s a reservist drill, the live ammo exercise, you know.”

In a suicide note found in his pants, he wrote, “I am becoming obsessed with the thinking that I want to kill all the people and myself. … I deeply regret that I missed the chance to kill as many as possible and commit suicide while serving at a general outpost.”

Choi received psychotherapy for hyperkinetic conduct disorder in 2010 and suffered from intense stress since he failed a test to become a ship welder early this year, military officials said.

While on active duty, he was listed as a draftee who required “special attention” and was transferred four times because he struggled to adapt.

He also obtained a license to possess a 1-meter-long sword late last month, according to police.

Earlier in the day, the National Assembly’s defense committee convened an emergency session and blasted the Army for its perceived lax control of firearms and porous safety regulations at the camps, as well as an imbalance between the numbers of instructors and soldiers.

During the training, about six active-duty soldiers oversaw 20 firing lines. A safety hook that was supposed to be hung on Choi’s rifle was also found to have had been missing.

“They apparently did not follow safety rules, which already seem flawed,” Rep. Yoo Seong-min, the floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party and a member of the parliamentary panel, told reporters after the meeting.

“There were officers and instructors at the scene, but since they were not armed at all, they could not subdue the shooter until his bullets ran out.”

Rep. Yoon Hu-duk of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy called the accident “inexcusable,” saying many parts of the current manual can be manipulated at instructors’ discretion.

“There was no system whatsoever to fully control the daily firing exercises even though the camp is located at the center of the city, and there was no closed circuit TV. The venue was virtually defenseless,” he said.

Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo apologized for the accident and offered condolences to the victims and their bereaved families, pledging a comprehensive probe and measures to prevent a recurrence.

“The military will carry out a transparent and thorough investigation without any suspicion left, while the Defense Ministry will come up with follow-up measures according to the probe’s results so that such an unfortunate accident will never occur again,” he told the lawmakers.

In South Korea, all physically sound young men are subject to compulsory military service for about two years, after which they are required to receive six rounds of three-day training over a period of eight years. The incident marks the first ever shooting spree during reservist drills.

Choi and the victims were part of the some 200 reservists who participated in the gunnery drill that day. In total, 545 soldiers were scheduled to take part in the three-day exercise program from Tuesday.

The Army has since been providing medical services for about 50 witnesses to see if they have posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. The reservists were discharged at 2 p.m., three hours ahead of the initial schedule.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)