hankyoreh

South Korean police officers and staffers from the National Forensic Service carry out a secondary examination of the scene of the deadly crowd crush in the neighborhood of Itaewon in Seoul’s Yongsan District on Monday afternoon. (Yonhap)

The National Police Agency (NPA) special investigation team looking into the deadly crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood on Oct. 29 has launched a full-scale investigation into the chief of Yongsan Police Station, the chief of Yongsan Fire Station, and the head of Yongsan District Office, renaming all three as suspects.

The team will see whether the trio — who were primarily responsible for public safety and emergency management before, during, and after the Halloween tragedy — had made proper preparations prior to the accident, and whether they had properly responded to the accident itself.

The special investigation team on Monday booked suspended Yongsan Police Station chief Lee Im-jae, as well as Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) senior emergency monitoring officer Ryu Mi-jin, who was on watch the day of the accident. Both were charged with professional negligence leading to deaths and injuries and dereliction of duty.

The head and subsection chief of Yongsan Police Station’s intelligence section were booked for allegedly deleting a safety report for the Halloween weekend from a computer. Also booked on charges of professional negligence leading to deaths and injuries were Yongsan District Office chief Park Hee-young and Yongsan Fire Station chief Choi Seong-beom.

Lee, the former Yongsan Police Station chief, allegedly made no reports up the chain of command and issued no on-site commands despite receiving a report on the dangerously crowded conditions in Itaewon on the day of the accident. He is accused of turning up at the site of the deadly crowd crush a full 50 minutes after the accident, having waited to finish his dinner before leaving for the scene.

Ryu is accused of leaving the emergency monitoring room even as it was receiving a stream of emergency calls warning of danger, while Park is accused of falling short in her duty as the district’s safety management chief.

In regard to the alleged deletion of the Yongsan Police Station’s intelligence report, special investigation team spokesperson Kim Dong-wook said, “We’ve found signs that a file was deleted from the author’s computer and that there was pressure applied [in that process].”

“We’re continuing to investigate the details of the deletion,” he added.

The Hankyoreh has secured security camera footage of the restaurant where Lee ate dinner on the day of the accident, as well as its surroundings. Lee had dinner with the head of the Yongsan Police Station’s intelligence section, who was also booked by the special investigators, as well as the head of the patrol section, a patrol section staffer, and Lee’s chauffeur.

Lee presumably received reports on the situation in Itaewon while he was eating, but he did not leave the restaurant until 9:46 pm, when the driver parked the car in front of the restaurant. An employee at the restaurant said that Lee “didn’t seem in much of a hurry” and ate his dinner at an ordinary pace before leaving.

The Hankyoreh also learned that Lee wasted 50 minutes in his car because of the traffic around Noksapyeong Station, which is just 10 minutes’ walking distance from the scene of the accident. The presidential office in Yongsan attempted to call Lee to check on the situation at the accident site, but he did not pick up the phone.

Lee arrived at the site of the accident in Itaewon around 11:05 pm, but the Yongsan Police Station situation report records his time of arrival as 10:20 pm. The special investigation team is also looking into charging him with writing a false official report.

Meanwhile, the special investigators’ booking of Yongsan Fire Station chief Choi Seong-beom suggests the scope of the police investigation could expand to include the fire department. Choi had been credited with responding to the tragedy in a relatively prompt manner compared with the police.

After receiving emergency calls from Itaewon before the disaster about the possibility of a crowd crush, the police asked the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters to jointly respond to the situation at 8:33 pm and 9:00 pm, but Choi has reportedly been accused of failing to mobilize his department after staffers spoke with the emergency callers.

By Bang Jun-ho, Jeon Gwang-joon, Jang Ye-ji, and Kwak Jin-san, staff reporters

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