Multiple Korean and American media outlets reported on Wednesday that the American soldier who ran into North Korea on Tuesday joined a South Korean tour group to the border after missing a flight to Fort Bliss, Texas, which military police had escorted him to.
The soldier – NK News reported, citing court records – had spent two months in American military detention following multiple arrests. The arrests appeared to be the result of unruly behavior, including smashing cars and assaulting a South Korean civilian in a nightclub altercation.
The Pentagon has not confirmed the identity of the individual, but multiple media reports have identified the man as Travis King, who the Korea JoongAng Daily described as a “23-year-old Private 2nd Class.”
United Nations Command confirmed a bizarre incident on Tuesday in the border village of Panmunjom, which straddles North and South Korea, in which an individual on a civilian tour of the area crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), the heavily militarized inter-Korean border. The person, described only as an American citizen, is believed to currently be in North Korean custody.
A banner advertising DMZ tour is attached at a tourist bus at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
The Pentagon emphasized that the individual crossed the border without authorization and voluntarily, not as a result of any American government initiative or operation.
“A U.S. Service member on a JSA [Joint Security Area] orientation tour willfully and without authorization crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),” Col. Isaac Taylor, a spokesman for U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), said on Tuesday. “We believe he is currently in DPRK custody and are working with our KPA counterparts to resolve this incident.”
American Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a press briefing that the individual was “one of our service members” and did not have “authorization” to cross.
“We believe that he is in DPRK custody, and so we are closely monitoring and investigating the situation and working to notify the soldier’s next of kin and engaging to address this incident,” Austin noted.
ABC News, CBS News, the Associated Press, and multiple South Korean outlets identified the individual in question as Travis King. JoongAng reported that, prior to his arrival at the Korean border, King had missed a flight to Texas, where he was expected to face American military disciplinary action. Military police, the newspaper claimed, had escorted King to Incheon International Airport for his flight. The escorts accompanied him through security but left him at the airport once he crossed towards the gates. There, the South Korean newspaper narrated, King missed the flight, left the airport, and booked a tour to Panmunjom.
The Associated Press similarly reported that King “could have faced additional military discipline and discharge from the service” upon his arrival in Texas. The flight back to America, the news agency noted, was scheduled following a nearly two-month stint in prison in South Korea.
The prison stint was reportedly a result of violent criminal behavior, NK News reported on Wednesday.
“Early in the morning on Oct. 8 last year, police arrested King in Seoul after receiving a report about him assaulting another person. He continued being ‘aggressive’ toward the victim and police officers and was detained in a patrol car,” NK News reported, citing South Korean court documents that accused King of shouting “‘fuck Korean, fuck Korean army, fuck Korean police’” and kicking a police car.
‘The same document also shows that King was prosecuted on Sept. 25 last year after punching a South Korean national in the face multiple times after a drunken altercation at a Seoul club at 9:40 a.m.,” NK News continued. “King was mad because the assault victim, also a club visitor, did not share drinks with him, the ruling reads.”
Reports in JoongAng and the South Korean news service Yonhap are consistent with King being arrested for damaging a police vehicle and with a nightclub altercation.
NK News noted that police officials in the areas where King was allegedly arrested “declined to confirm” that the individual in those court documents was the same man who ran into North Korea on Tuesday.
Reached by ABC News, King’s mother, Claudine Gates, confirmed that the U.S. Army told her that King was the man who crossed into North Korea. She denied that King had a history of behavior that would indicate a desire to defect to North Korea – “I can’t see Travis doing anything like that” – and lamented she just “wants him to come home.”
Witnesses to the incident on Tuesday expressed shock and confusion; multiple sources said they believed that the man was engaging in a prank or stunt.
“This man gives out a loud ‘ha ha ha,’ and just runs in between some buildings,” a witness told CBS News. “I thought it was a bad joke at first, but when he didn’t come back, I realized it wasn’t a joke, and then everybody reacted and things got crazy.”
Sarah Leslie speaks during an interview in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Leslie thought she was witnessing a stunt when she saw an American soldier start sprinting toward North Korea. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
“I assumed initially he had a mate filming him in some kind of really stupid prank or stunt, like a TikTok, the most stupid thing you could do,” another witness, New Zealand tourist Sarah Leslie, told the Associated Press. “But then I heard one of the soldiers shout, ‘Get that guy.’”
“People couldn’t really quite believe what had happened,” she added. “Quite a few were really shocked. Once we got on the bus and got out of there we were all kind of staring at each other.”
At one point, she said, he bought a DMZ hat from a gift shop.