I was stopped when I tried to visit my neighbor with a weapon due to a conflict between floors... 4 months in prison

The crime was committed while on trial for stalking an upstairs neighbor.
“It was only an attempt, but if you prepare a weapon in advance, you can’t avoid imprisonment.”

A man who had been struggling with noise between floors for years was sentenced to prison for trying to threaten his neighbors with a weapon. It is pointed out that noise between floors goes beyond simple discord between neighbors and sometimes even leads to violent crimes.

On the 19th, Judge Kim Hyeon-joo of the Busan District Court's Western Branch Criminal Division sentenced Mr. A, a man in his 30s, to four months in prison, who was indicted on charges of attempted special intimidation.

Mr. A has been on trial on charges of violating the Act on Punishment of Stalking Crimes, etc., due to a conflict with Mr. B, a woman in her 50s who lives on the upper floor of his house, over noise between floors since early 2022. Meanwhile, Mr. A received a 112 call at 8:25 a.m. on November 11 last year and was told by the police that he had made a report regarding inter-floor noise from the upper floor. Mr. A, who was enraged by this, grabbed the weapon that was in his small room and went out the front door, shouting, “I will kill those above.” However, the crime was only attempted because he was stopped by a police officer at the front door.

Judge Kim ruled, “Although the crime was only an attempt and the victim did not recognize the defendant’s special threatening behavior, Mr. A committed the crime while he was being tried for stalking Mr. B, and he had prepared a weapon in advance and used the weapon, so he cannot avoid imprisonment.”

Recently, conflicts over noise between floors have become a social problem, with cases of being applied to the stalking punishment law. In fact, in August last year, the Busan District Court sentenced a man in his 70s who was arrested and indicted on charges of violating the stalking crime punishment law to one year and two months in prison. This man continued to visit the house above where a woman in her 30s had moved in alone, protesting and swearing, and even went there with a baseball bat and hit the front door.

However, in some rulings, people are found not guilty, and attention is focused on the standards for applying stalking charges. In May of last year, the Seoul Central District Court acquitted a man in his 40s who was indicted on charges of violating the stalking punishment law and causing injury. The prosecution determined that Mr. C caused injuries to Mr. D, including insomnia and anxiety disorder, by swearing and behaving badly at night on 17 occasions from May 2017 to June 2021. However, the court ruled, “It is difficult to say that it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the evidence presented by the prosecutor alone caused insomnia and anxiety disorder by stalking the victim and making threats.”

The legal community explains that the crime of stalking is committed when a specific act is performed continuously and repeatedly to cause anxiety or fear in the other person. Park Dong-il, attorney representing Daeryun Law Firm, said, “As conflicts due to noise between floors intensify, there are many cases where the other party engages in unwanted contact, approach, and surveillance repeatedly, and as a result, there is a possibility that it may meet the legal requirements for a stalking crime.” He added, “Therefore, in the process of resolving the issue of noise between floors, it is necessary to refrain from emotional responses and take a cautious approach that takes legal risks into consideration.”
 

Reporter Kim Seong-hyeon (kksh@busan.com)

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I was stopped while trying to visit my neighbor with a weapon due to conflict between floors... 4 months in prison (link)