SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court on Monday jailed three police officers over their botched handling of a 2022 incident. Halloween crush in an entertainment district in Seoul, killing nearly 160 people.
It was the first conviction of officials for the authorities’ failure to prevent or respond adequately the overpopulation that happened in the popular Itaewon district. No top officials have been charged or held accountable, prompting criticism relatives and opposition politicians.
The crush, one of South Korea’s worst peacetime disasters, sparked a nationwide outpouring of grief. The victims, mainly in their 20s and 30s, had gathered in Itaewon Halloween celebrations.
The Seoul Western District Court has sentenced Lee Im-jae, the former chief of Seoul’s Yongsan Police Station, which includes Itaewon, to three years in prison. It sentenced another Yongsan police officer to two years in prison and gave a third officer a two-year suspended prison sentence.
The three officers were convicted of professional negligence resulting in death. The court ruled that the collision was not a natural disaster and could have been prevented or the toll reduced if the three officers had properly prepared for the crowd, quickly alerted others to the danger and appropriately supervised other police officers .
Both the police and prosecutors can appeal the ruling.
The court also found that Park Hee-young, head of the Yongsan ward office, and three other ward officials were not guilty. It said it is unlikely that a department office has the legal right to control or disperse a crowd of people.
Relatives criticized the acquittal of Park and the other district officials.
“Does this make sense? We can’t really accept this,” Lee Jeong-min, a representative of the families, told reporters.
Early 2023, a special police investigation has been completed that police and municipal officials had failed to formulate effective crowd control measures despite expecting a large number of people in Itaewon. Investigators said police also ignored hotline calls from pedestrians warning of a surging crowd before the wave turned deadly.
