Six inmates, whose ringleader was a member of Bamboo Union,[3] seized weapons, including assault rifles, and took the warden hostage for a 14-hour high-profile stand-off, which caught media attention nationwide.
[7][8] A subsequent investigation found that the head prison warden was unaware of the hostage crisis for 30 minutes after it began.
[9] On 26 February 2015, the Ministry of Justice announced that 23 prison officials had been reprimanded for their handling of the incident.
[12] Taiwanese media compared[13] this riot to the 1988 Seoul prison jailbreak in which Ji Kang-hun [ko] escaped to protest the seven-year sentence of Chun Kyeong-hwan, the brother of South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan, who was convicted of embezzlement and tax evasion.
[14] Ji thought it unfair that he received a longer sentence for stealing a smaller amount of money.