2 US soldiers arrested over separate police assaulting cases

Two drunken American soldiers were arrested for allegedly assaulting local police in two separate cases occurring early Sunday, Seoul police said. A 19-year-old soldier from a U.S. Army base in Dongducheon, just north of Seoul, hit a police officer in the face Sunday morning. The police officer identified as Moon was called to the scene at 3:15 a.m. after receiving a report that an American soldier was making a disturbance in a rest room at a bar near Seoul's Hongik University or Hongdae area. The soldier was arrested after a physical confrontation with the officer. During the fight the officer's glasses were broken and his uniform was torn. Two hours later, a 30-year-old soldier working at a U.S. Army air base in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, was arrested on charges of pushing a local police officer down the stairs of a police station near the Hongdae area, police said. At the station, the officer identified as Ryu was telling the soldier to go home following having reached an agreement with a Korean man that the solider had been in a physical fight with earlier in the night. Ryu sustained a knee injury from the fall, police said. The two cases were the latest in a spate of crimes committed by U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea. Last week, a group of American soldiers were arrested on charges of firing a BB gun into a crowded nightlife district in Seoul that led to a high-speed car chase with police. About 28,500 American soldiers are stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a cease-fire.