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Police have been checking vehicles and passengers on major highways and toll booths across the country for the last four days, searching for a fugitive who ran over two marines and fled with a military assault rifle. This has led to traffic congestion in some areas. Koreans had to spend an uneasy weekend worrying about the fugitive.
The fugitive fled with one K-2 assault rifle, 75 rounds of ammunition and a hand grenade. The rifle has a range of 460 m and the grenade has a kill zone of 10 to 15 m. Nobody can sleep easy knowing that such weapons are in the hands of a fugitive on the run.
What¡¯s worse is that the fugitive appears to have received special military training. He did not budge even after a marine hit him in the head with a rifle butt. Rather, he killed the other with a knife. To evade detection, the fugitive committed the crime during the evening rush hour, rather than late at night or early in the morning, when there are few people around. There is no way of telling what a calculating, bold and violent criminal like this is capable of doing. A clear motive for the crime has yet to be determined, but any harm being done to any of the presidential candidates would lead to unimaginable chaos. Presidential candidates are reportedly shunning rallies at night or in open spaces.
The only clues military and civilian law enforcement authorities have obtained so far are the blood type and DNA sample of the fugitive. That¡¯s because initial steps to deal with the crime have failed, with search efforts starting an hour after the crime was committed. Law enforcement officials are belatedly searching through 11,000 toll booth passes to an expressway running down the west coast and tracing 80,000 mobile phone calls. But there is no guarantee these efforts will lead to a breakthrough. Authorities must catch the fugitive as soon as possible to calm the nerves of the public. Cheong Wa Dae should take the lead and treat this case as a priority task involving public safety.
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