Korean students fined for drunk fight

Korean students fined for drunk fight

• Source: Global Times
• [09:09 March 10 2011]
• Comments

Three South Korean students were reprimanded and fined by police for drunken street fighting.

Haidian police received reports about a fight in front of the Jingyu Hotel near Tsinghua University in the wee small hours Tuesday.

According to the Haidian exit and entry administration, three South Korean students, surnamed Lee, Jeon and Kim, drank quite a bit at a bar in Wudaokou to celebrate Kim's first birthday in Beijing Monday night.

When they tried to hail a taxi near the Jingyu Hotel, a man on an electric bicycle accidentally ran over Jeon's foot. Lee and Kim grabbed the man off the bike and started beating him up.

A passerby, reportedly a foreigner from a Central Asian country, tried to mediate the fight, but was beaten by Lee and Kim. The man on the electric bike ran away amid the chaos.

During the fight, Lee was injured in the face and the back of his head with a beer bottle, and Kim was also punched in the face. The passerby fled when he saw Lee bleeding, said the police.

Believing that the "good Samaritan" was hiding in the hotel bar, Lee and Kim started taking it out on the bar. Kim smashed the bar's light box sign and started beating up the bar manager who came out to stop him. Kim also reportedly forced him to break the door to the manager's office, in an attempt to apprehend the "good Samaritan."

Police took away the three South Koreans who are studying Chinese in Beijing, though the police didn't reveal the name of their university.

After they sobered up, police reprimanded them and told Kim to pay 500 yuan ($76.23) to the bar and apologize to the manager.

Police are still trying to find the man on the electric bike and the passerby. Lee and Kim might be detained if the police can find further evidence of the fight, police said.

Global Times