This is the Law - Chapter 126

While this is a common Korean view of the SOFA, it is completely wrong.
US military personnel are regularly prosecuted for crimes (including rape and murder) by Korean courts, receiving sentences up to and including the death penalty. The US soldier crime rate is about 1/10 that of native-born Koreans. But despite that, almost anything that is a crime under US law would be allowed to be tried in Korean courts – and the local courts have a long history of abusing this.

One of the most famous absurdities is the 1995 Seoul Subway Brawl. A US soldier was seen patting the butt of a Korean woman. Several nearby Korean men confronted the soldier, only to be stopped by the woman who explained that she was the soldier’s wife. The Korean men then immediately called her a race traitor, spitting on her and physically assaulting her (punching and slapping). The soldier and his friends intervened to defend her.
The soldier, his friends, and his wife were all arrested and convicted of attacking the poor innocent Korean men. The US used the SOFA to pull the soldiers (and woman) out of jail and transfer them back to the US, paying only a fine, instead of letting them spend months or years in prison.
Korean media, to this day, still dishonestly reports this as a case of drunken US soldiers attacking a Korean woman, and nearby men coming to her defense.

Another example of local abuse is the 2002 assault, kidnapping, and beating of three US soldiers by an anti-American mob lead by a convicted North Korean spy. Despite the very public and videotaped torture of these soldiers, when the police arrived, they arrested the soldiers for assaulting the dozens of Korean men. Again, the US used SOFA to protect the soldiers. The Korean criminals, including the convicted North Korean spy? Well, one was charged, but the presiding judge claimed it wasn’t a crime because the US soldier provoked their own assault, kidnapping, and torture.

This isn’t to say the SOFA doesn’t get abused to protect people that should have been punished by the local government. But it is still used very often to protect US soldiers from corrupt and racist Korean police and judges.

TL;DR: This is a story. Enjoy it, but don’t think it accurately reflects reality.