Seoul's chief of police has been charged with professional negligence over the deadly 2022 Halloween crowd crush that killed 159 people in the district of Itaewon.
Prosecutors, on Friday, said that the head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA), Kim Kwang-ho, had been indicted over the bungled response to the incident, which took place a year and three months ago.
On October 29, 2022, tens of thousands of people had gathered in Seoul's Itaewon district, known for its nightlife, for post-pandemic holiday celebrations.
However, the event turned deadly when the revellers poured into a narrow alleyway. A lack of effective crowd control left 159 crushed to death under the weight of people falling on each other.
A statement released Seoul's Western District Prosecutors' Office on Friday said that Kwang-ho was charged with professional negligence resulting in injury or death.
In January 2023, a special police investigation team referred Kwang-ho and 22 other police, rescue and district office officials to the prosecution on charges related to the government's botched response to the tragedy, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
The Seoul Western District Prosecutors Office has since indicted the chief of the Yongsan Police Station, the head of the Yongsan Ward office and other officials but had remained undecided whether to indict the SMPA chief for more than a year, the Yonhap report added.
The Seoul police chief was indicted without physical detention for allegedly “failing his professional duties to send police forces to prepare against the apparent safety risk involving the large Halloween crowd on the night of the disaster”.
Kwang-ho is the highest-ranking police official charged in connection with the crowd crush.
The police are expected to follow up his indictment possibly with a decision to remove him from his current position.
The prosecution, meanwhile, decided not to indict former Yongsan Fire Station chief Choi Seong-beom, clearing him of suspicions of professional negligence connected to the crowd crush.
