South Korea’s National Police Agency will request an investigation into the local commissioner of the Yongsan district in Seoul and the officer in charge of supervising emergencies in the metropolitan area of the South Korean capital.
The decision comes after mounting criticism of police following revelations that officers did little to prevent a human stampede at a Halloween party in Seoul last Saturday, especially after 11 emergency calls came in warning of overcrowding four hours before the deadly crowd, Yonhap reported.
For this reason, the South Korean National Police will request a special investigation team to investigate Lee Im Jae, the chief of the Yongsan Police Station guarding the Itaewon neighborhood — where the incident took place — and Ryu Mi Jin, who was in charge of monitoring the situation at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency at the time, for negligence of their duties.
More specifically, Ryu has been accused of neglecting her duties to promptly recognize the emergency situation and report it to the Seoul Police Chief and the situation room of the National Police Agency.
Lee also neglected her duties to command the police response to the stampede by arriving at the scene too late and belatedly reporting the situation to higher levels, police officials told the agency.
In this regard, the National Police Agency has removed Ruy and Lee from service and placed them on «disciplinary standby».
The latest report from South Korea’s Disaster and Safety Measures Headquarters put the death toll at 156 and the number of people injured in the human stampede that took place on Saturday night during a Halloween celebration in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood at 151.
So far, a total of 55 men and 101 women have lost their lives as a result of this event, most were around 20 years old, although a dozen of the dead were over 40, as reported by the authorities and has collected the Yonhap news agency.
A large concentration of people in a narrow alley just four meters wide near the Hamilton Hotel, with a slope that formed a downhill slope, generated that people began to fall on each other, so hundreds of people reported breathing difficulties and 45 died on the spot.
