Korean Child Dies Brutally After Taekwondo Instructor's Alleged Assault

A five-year-old child died on July 23, KST, succumbing to injuries from an alleged assault by a taekwondo instructor in Yangju city of Gyeonggi Province.

download - 2024-07-26T062732.195 — The taekwondo instructor (center) who is accused of abusing the child to death | *Yonhap*

The child has been in the intensive care unit since July 12 after suffering from a cardiac arrest at a taekwondo studio. According to reports, he was squeezed into a rolled mat upside down for nearly 20 minutes by a male instructor before being rescued.

Witnesses told the media that the instructor, a man in his 30s, ignored the child’s calls for help and even tried to delete the footage from the security cameras inside the studio while others performed CPR on the boy.

The police arrived at the scene and immediately took the instructor into custody. They have launched a probe into whether the man’s actions directly caused the cardiac arrest and whether he did it with the intent of physically endangering him. During the interrogation, the instructor denied intent and claimed it was all supposed to be a “joke.”