Korean police have carried out a sweeping reshuffle, changing 14 of the 18 metropolitan and provincial police commissioner posts. Ko Beom-seok takes over the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and Kim Jong-cheol becomes deputy commissioner general.
The National Police Agency announced appointments at the level of metropolitan and provincial commissioner. Fourteen of the country's 18 posts change hands, the largest single round in several years.
광고 문의 · 300×250Ko Beom-seok was named to head the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and Kim Jong-cheol as deputy commissioner general. Both are at the rank of senior superintendent general and effectively set the shape of the force's upper tier.
The reshuffle comes while discussion of police restructuring continues. With institutional work under way on the division between investigation and administration and on the running of autonomous policing, the command layer has been settled alongside it.
Geographically, many of the changes fall in the capital region and the southeast. Provincial commissioners oversee policing policy and staffing across their jurisdictions, so a wider reshuffle raises more questions about continuity on the ground.
For foreign residents, changes at this level affect foreign affairs sections and interpretation support only indirectly. Such support is generally handled by standing units at agency level, so a change of commander does not immediately alter the service counter.
Announcements of this kind are normally followed by further rounds. Transfers at senior superintendent level and below come next, and changes of case officers at local stations are fixed at that stage.
