South Korean officers convicted in Halloween crowd crush cover-up

A South Korean court docket on Wednesday convicted three former law enforcement officials of destroying inner recordsdata and different proof in an tried cover-up after a Halloween crowd crush that killed practically 160 folks within the capital, Seoul, in 2022. They have been the primary convictions over the deaths.

The excessive demise toll was largely blamed on official failures in catastrophe planning and a botched emergency response. Greater than 20 authorities and police officers have been indicted.

The Seoul Western District Courtroom sentenced Park Seong-min, a former senior intelligence officer on the Seoul Metropolitan Police Company, to 18 months in jail on fees that he ordered subordinates to erase inner paperwork after the crush. These included studies displaying how police ignored warnings about potential crowd-related accidents within the nightlife district of Itaewon.

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Kim Jin-ho, a former intelligence officer at Seoul’s Yongsan district police station, obtained a suspended one-year sentence on comparable fees. Kwang Yeong-seok, a lower-ranking officer on the Yongsan station, obtained a four-month deferred sentence after being discovered responsible of destroying recordsdata beneath Kim’s instruction.

The Democratic Celebration’s flooring chief, Hong Ihk-pyo, middle, delivers a speech at a rally protesting the federal government’s dealing with of the 2022 Itaewon crowd-crush catastrophe in entrance of the primary constructing of the Nationwide Meeting in Seoul, South Korea, on Feb. 1, 2024. (Chris Jung/NurPhoto by way of Getty Photos)

A civic group representing victims’ households issued a press release welcoming the ruling, which they stated acknowledged “criminal liability of public officials for failing to anticipate and prepare for the huge crowd leading up to the tragedy, and for covering up and downplaying information about the tragedy after it happened.”

The group additionally criticized South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for vetoing final month a invoice handed by the opposition-controlled parliament to nominate a particular investigator to guide an impartial investigation into the accident. Following a 74-day investigation into the crowd crush, a particular investigation crew led by the Nationwide Police Company concluded that police and municipal officers in Yongsan district did not plan efficient crowd management measures regardless of anticipating large crowds.

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Regardless of anticipating a crowd of greater than 100,000, Seoul police assigned 137 officers to Itaewon on the day of the crush.

Police additionally ignored hotline calls positioned by pedestrians who warned of swelling crowds earlier than the surge turned lethal. Officers additionally botched their response earlier than folks started getting crushed in an alley close to Hamilton Lodge, and failed to determine management over the positioning and permit paramedics to succeed in the injured in time.

Some specialists have known as the crush a “manmade disaster” that might have been prevented with pretty easy steps comparable to using extra police and public staff to watch bottleneck factors, implementing one-way stroll lanes and blocking slim pathways.