The Schoolgirls’ uniform ambush and capture of the flasher is an episode from Kim Jiyoung’s eighth-grade years in which five students acted against a local man who had repeatedly exposed himself near their school. The girls took him to a police station, and he never returned, but the school punished them rather than treating their action as a reason to reconsider its response to the danger.

Background and the Classroom Incident

The flasher had appeared at the school gate and along the route to school for years. On cloudy days, he sometimes positioned himself in an empty lot opposite the windows of an all-girls’ eighth-grade classroom. The students dreaded being assigned to that room, even as the notoriety of the situation became a source of nervous joking.

Early in spring, after rain and fog had settled over the city, several girls called toward the lot from the classroom window. Kim Jiyoung remained at her desk, too far away to see and too shy to approach the window. A friend later told her that the man had responded to the girls’ calls. The commotion ended when the Head of Student Discipline entered the room and ordered the girls near the window to come forward.

Punishment and the Ambush

The girls protested that some had been sitting in their seats and had neither shouted nor looked out. The teacher nevertheless selected five and took them to the teachers’ office. They missed fourth period to do drills and write apology letters. When the class bully returned at lunchtime, she was still angry that the students had been punished instead of the man whose conduct had prompted the incident.

Afterward, the five girls, who had habitually arrived late, began coming to school before everyone else and sleeping through morning classes. Teachers noticed a change but left them alone because they were not causing other trouble. Their purpose became clear when the bully encountered the flasher in an alley early one morning. Four girls hidden behind her joined her in subduing him with clotheslines and belts; together, the five tied him up and took him to a nearby police station.

Aftermath and Significance

The account does not say what happened to the man at the police station. It does establish that he disappeared for good. The five girls, meanwhile, were suspended for a week. They wrote apology letters in the Student Discipline room, cleaned the school field and toilets, and did not discuss what had happened. Teachers continued to reprimand them as they passed, treating their conduct as a disgrace to the school.

The episode turns on a sharp reversal: the students who had faced a recurring threat were first disciplined for responding to it and then punished again after they took action. The outcome is divided—the flasher is gone, but the school’s sanctions and the girls’ enforced silence leave their intervention officially marked as misconduct. Kim Jiyoung’s position in the classroom matters too: she witnesses the episode’s beginning but does not join the five, keeping the remembered account distinct from the girls’ act of capture.