A man who posted a fake mass stabbing threat online — triggering the deployment of armored vehicles, special forces units, and 529 police officers over nearly three weeks — has been ordered to pay the state ₩14.84 million in damages. It is the first court ruling in Korea on a civil damages claim by police against the author of a threatening online post. Here are the key points.

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Background

– On September 18, 2024, A posted a message on an anonymous online community he managed, stating he would stab 30 people and die at Yatap Station the following Monday.
– Police took the threat seriously and deployed special forces units and armored vehicles to Yatap Station, maintaining heightened security patrols in the area from September 19 to October 6, 2024 — a total of 529 officers over the period.
– A was arrested 56 days after the post, following international investigative cooperation. He told police he had posted the threat to promote his website.
– Police determined the false threat had caused serious waste of public security resources and harm to the public, and filed a civil damages claim — the first such action in Korea against an online threat poster, filed alongside a parallel suit against the author of a fake bomb threat at a Shinsegae department store.

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Court Decision

– Suwon District Court (Civil Division 22, Judge Jang Seong-sin) ruled partially in the state’s favor on August 24, 2026, ordering A to pay ₩14.847 million.
– The court found that A’s unlawful act caused the state to incur unnecessary expenditure in deploying police to maintain order around Yatap Station and in apprehending A — specifically recognizing overtime pay, fuel costs, and other itemized expenses totaling approximately 27% of the state’s total claim of ₩55.05 million.
– The remaining approximately 73% of the claim — approximately ₩40.2 million representing the base salaries of officers deployed during regular working hours — was rejected. The court reasoned that the abstract concept of wasted police capacity is not the same as a concrete financial loss, and that base salaries paid to officers during regular hours are fixed costs that would have been incurred regardless of this incident. No additional financial loss arose from those salaries.

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Key Takeaways

– Online threats that trigger large-scale emergency police deployments can now give rise to civil liability for the measurable additional costs caused — this is the first Korean court ruling to establish that principle.
– The recoverable costs are limited to genuinely incremental expenditure: overtime, fuel, and other variable costs directly caused by the response. Base salaries of regularly employed officers are not recoverable because they represent fixed costs unaffected by the incident.
– The distinction between abstract harm — wasted police capacity — and concrete financial loss is legally significant. Courts will not award damages for the opportunity cost of diverting police resources unless that cost translates into an identifiable additional expenditure.
– The relatively modest recovery (27% of the claim) reflects the difficulty of converting public resource waste into compensable financial loss under current tort principles — but the ruling establishes the framework for future cases.
– This ruling may deter copycat threats by making clear that criminal prosecution is not the only consequence — civil liability for the cost of the emergency response follows as well.

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Why This Matters

This is a landmark ruling for public order and civil liability in Korea. False threats that mobilize emergency responses have historically been treated purely as criminal matters, with no civil accountability for the resources wasted. This decision opens a new front: the state can now recover at least the incremental costs of responding to fake threats through civil litigation. For practitioners, the ruling provides a framework — and a ceiling — for calculating recoverable costs in future cases. For would-be threat posters, it adds a substantial financial dimension to the criminal consequences they already face. The parallel case involving the department store bomb threat is still pending, and its outcome will help clarify how broadly this liability framework will apply.

Article: https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20260824057051061?input=1195m