Two former Seoul cops arrests over Halloween crush

• Former intelligence agents Park Sung-min and Kim Jin-ho of the Yongsan Police have been taken into custody.
• They allegedly told subordinates to trash a report about Halloween crowds in Itaewon.
• Call logs show that the police received 11 increasingly urgent emergency calls requesting crowd control and then rescuers.

Two former police officers were detained on Monday on suspicion of erasing evidence in connection with the fatal Halloween crowd crush in Seoul, according to South Korean officials.

In connection with an ongoing investigation into the disaster that claimed 158 lives in October, former intelligence agents Park Sung-min of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Kim Jin-ho of the Yongsan Police have been taken into custody.

They allegedly gave their subordinates the order to trash a report that discussed the dangers of a big throng amassing in Itaewon for Halloween celebrations.

Due to how they handled the Itaewon event, the two cops were previously fired from their positions in November. Prosecutors now have 10 days to bring charges under the provisions of the arrest warrants for the couple that were issued by a Seoul court on Monday.

Tens of thousands of revellers descended to Seoul’s Itaewon area on October 29 to celebrate Halloween, and the majority of those slain in the throng were young people and teenagers.

Also Read

Halloween tragedy in Seoul

Itaewon is a popular nightlife district in Seoul, South Korea. Tens of...

There was little police presence or crowd control until it was too late, according to survivors and witnesses, and many people became trapped as the narrow streets became congested.

On Monday, the court also rejected arrest warrants for Song Byung-joo, a former emergency monitoring officer, and Lee Im-jae, the station chief and former Yongsan Police officer. Regarding the crowd crush that resulted in fatalities and injuries, both are suspected of professional carelessness.

The court rejected the warrants, citing a little probability of Lee and Song erasing evidence or escaping. They are still being looked into.

A special police team was established to investigate what went wrong after the disaster, and officers raided police stations and offices all throughout the capital to gather internal police reports and records of emergency calls.

These call logs show that the police received at least 11 increasingly urgent emergency calls requesting crowd control and then rescuers. At least four hours before the catastrophe took place, the first calls started to come in.

Since then, public outrage and calls for accountability have grown, with some demanding for President Yoon Suk Yeol to be dismissed in light of the tragedy.

“I’m desperately asking the politicians of this country. If you’re serious about the pain of the bereaved, you need to become honest. You need to conduct a proper investigation and apologize to our children,” the mother of one 29-year-old victim said at a news conference on November 22. Holding her son’s death certificate, she said the exact cause, timing and location of his death remained unknown.

Also Read

South Korean authorities: Halloween gatherings were unregulated

Families frantically called morgues and hospitals to find missing loved ones on...