Kyopo Sun God Attack on Singing Irishmen

Helios Club in Itaewon

Here is the account first presented on a site for expats who watch the media and what goes on in South Korea --

(this is not the complete post or the original order)

I saw there was a group of about thirty Irish men and women.  They were also asked to leave the bar.  I did not see any confrontation and watched them start moving closer to the door. As they were slamming back their drinks and getting ready to leave they were singing. They hadn't even finished singing and five or six Korean bouncers started circling the group.  I was starting to feel uneasy.  Then I watched as one of the Korean bouncers, possibly the supervisor, began instructing the other Korean men to go somewhere.  They diligently went back behind the bar and came out with bats and clubs.

(the “misconduct” note below was given by USFK -- before the Irish incident -- because the manager would not allow US MPs to come in occasionally and see what their soldiers were up to or if anyone that wasn’t supposed to be there had left base. MPs patrolling night spots near US bases is one way USFK tries to cut down on bad incidents with the locals.)

They completely surrounded the group of Irish and started pushing them out. They knocked over chairs and physically pushed them towards the door.  I have worked in bars and I have never, ever seen anything like this. They proceeded to follow the Irish out onto the street.  Once they got the Irish onto the street, utter mayhem broke loose. I am still in shock. Literally.  I cannot believe this happened.  The bouncers started hitting the Irish with clubs, spraying the area with pepper spray and shooting the Irish with a canister gun of some sort. About twenty of us hit the ground when we heard the first wave of gun fire. One of the Irish was shot in the head.  We first thought it was a real bullet and he was going to die.  I don't know what they shot him with but blood was racing down his head, neck and body.  I was frozen for a second.  I would not believe it.  There were people scattered everywhere and running away.

The cops soon arrived on the scene.  My girlfriend (Korean) had so much blood on her that they thought she had been shot.  She was now completely hysterical.   The cops asked her what happened and she replied  "the bouncers from Helios attacked that group of Irish with Pepper Spray, bats and guns."  As she started to describe this, one of the bouncers came running over and said she was lying. I had been quiet until this point, but I could not believe the gall of this bouncer.  I shouted "look at the blood on her!!  Where the F*&% did that come from"  As she held up her hands one of the Korean police officers laughed.

First, a brief summary from the sources available - none of which come from the main Korean newspapers. Most of this account is not in dispute. The group of Irish were asked to leave the bar. They were singing. Six or so security people with clubs began forcing them out. In the street, the clubs, pepper spray, and gas guns were used on them. The police arrested nobody.

Another thing to note is that guns, gas or not, are very unusual in Korea. The Korean police didn’t begin using them in general until a few years ago. Guns are rare in Korea so they aren’t necessary for the police. You NEVER hear about Korean patrons being discharged from a nightclub with sticks and gas guns.

This first hand account first appeared on a site for expats that watch the Korean media and what goes on there. It also caused a big stir on Dave’s ESL café and other sites frequented by foreign teachers and soldiers. I did not add it to this site or another forum right away, because a couple of years ago, some asshole posted a fake story about a gang-rape of a teacher in Pusan that took two or three weeks to track down and verify as being a hoax.

It would be nice if the major Korean press would cover a story like this, but they didn’t. It was written up a couple of times by the English paper Seoul Times, but that doesn’t reach many people.

Here are some other accounts -- including from the manager - a Korean-American --- that give you enough to have a good picture of what went on and who is lying.

From the Seoul Times 09.15.03

We heard from an ear-to-the-ground type that on Saturday morning, a little after 3 a.m., a brawl broke out on the sidewalk outside Helios….Curious, we went to Helios the next night, and were able to get an account of the donnybrook from an eyewitness, a bartender there. She said it all began when closing time came, and the Irishmen were loath to drink up and leave. “They asked us for one more song, so we played one more song ― we did them a favor,” she explained. But the manager at Helios, evidently, was ticked off by something. “He speaks fluent English, and he heard them using bad language toward him and the bar,” the bartender said.

(Note -- if you read articles about fights between GIs or other foreigners in Korea, you will often hear “He cursed me harshly” as an explanation why a “scuffle” broke out. This seemed to be good enough for my adult students over the years, but I have watched many Korean-on-Korean arguments in the street at night (I used to live above a bar section near a market), and besides pushing and pulling, cursing in foul Korean language rarely results in fists being used, much less bats. Koreans are masters of semi-violence as you can see from the many protest videos. Full on violence - as in this case - is very rare.)

The manager grabbed a club and started banging it around. “It wasn’t a baseball bat, just a stick,” the bartender said. The local rent-a-thugs, who’d been called in, swept the teachers down the stairs and out the door. Our eyewitness wisely chose to stay inside, but was able to see a little of what happened next. “I went over to the balcony, and saw two or three groups of people fighting, and the security men shooting their gas guns,” she said.

Here is the manger’s account --

Helios Pledges Better Service to Foreigners
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/index.html

At around 3 a.m. on Sept 12, 2003 there were skirmishes (physical conflict) between about 40 Irish customers and the restaurant staff. When the Irish people were asked to leave the restaurant 30 minutes after the last call they went on a rampage with the restaurants staff.

The violent stage of the incident started when one tipsy Irish guy hit one of the Helios employees with a 500-cc beer mug. The mug was broken into pieces on the floor.

Fearful of more violence by the shouting Irish customers its manager called nearby security companies. Five guards arrived and led those Irish customers out of the restaurant. President Shin said he had to excercise extreme caution when he and his staff led the Irish out of Helios. Even when he saw Irish people were getting rough and tough with the security guards he asked the guards to take special care of the Irish customers.

Too bad the Helios manager didn’t write down the story so he could remember it, because in a subsequent interview, the facts didn’t come out the same way --

What Really Happend at Helios Bar?
http://www.theseoultimes.com/ST/

At 2:30 we have last call every night and it was the same as usual on this Friday, I was behind the bar and gave the group of 30 to 40 foreigners and extra 40 minutes to finish there drinks, at 3:10 am I approached the table and asked them to leave, they asked to sing a song which lasted for 15 minutes.  I had let most of my staff go and wanted to close up but this group weren't listening to me so I called for back up from Team One, a security team that are based around the Itaewon area.

In the first version, he didn’t call the security team until after an Irishman broke a glass mug over one of his worker’s heads. Another problem with the guy’s story that I haven’t been able to pin down exactly is this -- the first enterview ended like this:

Opened Jan. 9, 2003 Helios offers a large assortment of Western food and drinks with its 22 well-mannered and highly-trained staff. Helios is open from 4 p.m. till 4 a.m. 365 days a year.

Why would you have last call at 2:30 every night and give patrons on one particular night “40 extra minutes to finish up” when you close at 4:00??? Going to catch the train early in the morning (around 5 AM), I have seen plenty of Koreans coming out of clubs in a much smaller city than Seoul. 2:30 seems pretty early. My educated guess is that since this was also the Chusok weekend -- Korea’s Thanksgiving which lasts about 3 or 4 days -- he wanted to go home early.

I asked the security team to escort the guests outside. At this point some of the foreigners started to use bad language (which was understood fully by Mr. Shin who is Kyopo or Korean-American) there was pushing inside and one of the foreigners hit Mr. Kim (security staff) with a 500-cc beer glass across the face breaking it into pieces on the carpet.

Mr. Shin should have coordinated his story better with his staff as well. The same article interviewed Mr. Kim.

A: When I was helping to escort the foreigners outside, there was a lot of pushing, one of the foreigners was holding a 500-cc glass which accidentally hit me on the cheek.

Q: So it wasn't intentional?  A: No it wasn't.

(on the glass breaking) The reason for that was I saw the foreigner standing with the glass in his hand and fearing that he might use it as a weapon I knocked it out of his hand, breaking it.

Now back to the manager --

Q: Do you think that your actions and that of the security staff inside where witness reports of been arm locked, pushed and the use of bats only inflamed the situation?

<(We know these are tactics of semi-violent protests that is an art form in >(We know these are tactics of semi-violent protests that is an art form in South Korea - for whatever that is worth.)

A: No, I told the security team to escort the guests outside and even when one of my security team was attacked with a 500-cc glass I told the security team I don't want any violence inside"

As the security team were returning to their other jobs in Limelight, UN Bar and King Club etc., one of them, Mr. Lee was hit by a foreigner, where upon they had to defend themselves as there lives were threatened.

Q: I understand you have agreed to pay compensation to the victims, four of whom have had hospital treatment?

A: I was going to pay compensation today in front of The Seoul Times, but as the victims have not turned up and since this incident has caused my business a lot of damage I refuse to pay there medical bills. (Note* As this interview was finishing one of the victims appeared but Mr. Shin refused to change his mind)

The article then gives a very brief, and very uninformative Q&A session with someone from the police --

Q: Why weren't any details of the victims or the security team taken, as only one of the victims were asked. Did they want to make a statement despite the fact that there were at least four badly injured victims there?

A: Mr. Min denied the allegations that they deliberately disregarded foreigners' "pleas" for legal assistance. We have three statements, two from the security team and one foreigner girl.

Reporter: Two foreign women have said they approached the police officers there and asked to make a statement but were refused. One victim with a blood wound was asked to make a statement by the Itaewon Police translator with the reported quote "Talk now or never, tomorrow no."

That sounds about right - in Korea --- 30 something Irish and other foreigners get gun shot in the streets of Itaewon, and you get three whopping statements --- two from the security people! This is not a good story about the Korean police or the way foreigners are sometimes treated by bad apples in the entertainment districts.

I always told new teachers, in most places, you will receive better treatment in shops and restaurants than the Korean customers, because you are special. But if you stay in Korea for a year and don’t sit in your room all the time, you will have one or two incidents per year where an irate, usually drunk, Korean will want to start trouble.

During the peaks in hate, this becomes a bigger problem in a place like Seoul or the bigger cities, and if you look like a soldier, it will happen more frequently. You learn to deal with it. Often, you can see the problem ahead of time. Like being on the subway when some drunk men or a crazy person gets on, and you can move to another car, or cross to the other side of the street, or defuse the situation before it happens. Other times, you can’t. I have “endured” three or four occasions where my shirt and shirt sleeves were grabbed and I was push-pulled around until the drunks let me go and I moved on.

I’m not a fighter. But, I never considered striking back for a second. I came to Korea during the first subway incident where a soldier’s Korean wife was slapped and spit on for being with a foreigner, and the soldier was found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail - which was reduced to a fine on appeal.

But what makes this story more than prime material for a sight on anti-Americanism and anti-USFK activities in Korea is this fact --

If this had involved US soldiers instead of Irish teachers, the Korean press would have been going absolutely bat shit.

The anti-US demonstrations would have swelled from the few hundred now back up to thousands.

Just like in the 1995 subway incident, bands of Korean young men would have been marching in front of Yongsan base with loudspeakers demanding soldiers come out and “try to kick their ass.”

And US soldiers would have been arrested and put on trial in a Korean court, and Koreans would have still screamed bloody murder because the soldiers were held by USFK until after the verdict was rendered….

This is Korea. This is the double standard. If you are a soldier, you can’t strike back. The husband of a co-worker was kicked in the thigh while sightseeing in Seoul by a 20 something man, but he just walked away, because if he had struck back, a dozen or more bystandards just on the scene would have “held him” until the Korean police came and they would have been witnesses against him at his trial.

You read a story like this about 2 or 3 times a year.

If you aren’t a soldier and you get into a situation, you will end up like the Irish -- the authorities will want to distance themselves from you as quick as possible.