South Korea Halloween stampede: Police chief apologizes – USA TODAY
South Korean’s national police chief apologized Tuesday for what he said was an insufficient police response to calls warning of a massive crowd surge, one that soon killed more than 150 people in Seoul Saturday night.
The deadly incident is one of South Korea’s worst public disasters in years and the country is now in the middle of a weeklong national mourning period for the victims.
“I feel a heavy responsibility (for the disaster) as the head of one of the related government offices,” national police chief Yoon Hee Keun said in a press conference. “Police will do their best to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again.”
During the press conference, Hee Keun said authorities got many reports of an emergency before the crowd conditions turned deadly. Calls from people revealed the danger and urgency of the situation on the ground, he said. But the police response on-scene was “inadequate.”
Separately, South Korea’s interior minister, emergency office chief, Seoul mayor and the head of a ward office that includes the Itaewon neighborhood all offered public apologies.
‘LIKE A HELL’: Relatives search for loved ones in Seoul after Halloween crowd surge leaves 153 dead
A 475-member police task force began investigating the tragedy and their response to the dangerous crowd conditions Monday.
As part of the investigation, they would look into whether police responded appropriately to emergency calls, Hee Keun said.
South Korea’s National Forensic Service staff examined the site of the incident Monday for answers and a police task force was also assigned to look into the cause of the surge. Investigators pieced together the night’s events using footage from area security cameras and videos posted to social media.
Police said they had sent 137 officers to maintain order during the Halloween festivities on Saturday, much more than the 34-90 officers mobilized in 2017, 2018 and 2019 before the pandemic. But some observers questioned whether the 137 officers were enough to handle the estimated 100,000 people gathered Saturday in Itaewon.
The Itaewon alleyway surge killed at least 156 people, including several dozen foreign nationals. Two Americans were among those killed: Anne Gieske, a University of Kentucky nursing student who was doing a study-abroad program in South Korea and Steven Blesi, 20.
Nearly two-thirds of the dead were women. The South Korean government said Monday about 150 others remain injured. The death toll could rise further because officials said 33 of the injured were in serious condition.
More than 80% of the dead were in their 20s or 30s and 11 were teenagers, the Interior Ministry said.
Contributing: Ashley R. Williams, Cady Stanton, USA TODAY; Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press.