Thousands sign petition demanding a new probe into the woman’s death after police dismissed her case, igniting public fury
2-MIN READ2-MIN ListenThe Korea TimesPublished: 3:49pm, 23 Apr 2026More than 80,000 people have signed a petition calling for a renewed investigation after a 19-year-old woman died by suicide in late February following a South Korean police decision to drop her sexual assault case.
As of Thursday, the petition posted on the National Assembly site on April 16 has collected 80,900 signatures, surpassing the 50,000-signature threshold that requires the legislature to formally review it.
The case centres on a woman who filed a criminal complaint in December 2025 against her employer at a bar in Ansan, Gyeonggi province, accusing the owner, a man in his 40s, of quasi-rape. She told police that she had drunk heavily, blacked out and later came to her senses to find him on top of her and engaged in sexual activity.
Police, however, accepted the owner’s claim that it was consensual and decided not to send the case to the prosecution, citing CCTV footage that showed the two smiling and talking to each other before and after the encounter.
Days after being informed of the conclusion, the woman, who had been an aspiring police officer, according to her family, fell to her death from a tall building on February 21. She left a message asking that the objection to the police decision stored on her phone be submitted on her behalf.
In the petition, her family said the investigation relied on a single round of questioning of both victim and suspect, CCTV footage selectively submitted by the suspect and testimonies from a limited number of witnesses.
