Investigation into the Itaewon Crushing Disaster Expands to Include National Police Chief and Other Officials

It is pretty clear that the messaging from the investigation into the Itaewon Crushing Disaster is that local officials are the ones the blame for the tragedy:

Rescuers move injured people in Seoul's Itaewon district on Oct. 30, 2022. (Yonhap)

A special investigation team raided the office of the national police chief and dozens of other offices Tuesday as part of an investigation into the deadly Itaewon crowd crush that killed at least 156 people.

A total of 55 offices were raided, including the offices of National Police Agency Commissioner General Yoon Hee-keun and Kim Kwang-ho, the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA), according to officials. 

Other locations include offices of senior SMPA intelligence and situation monitoring officers, the Yongsan Police Station, Yongsan Ward office chief Park Hee-young, the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters and the Yongsan Fire Station.

Yonhap

The now fired Yongsan Police Chief Lee Im-Jae is getting absolutely crushed in the media for his slow response to the tragedy:

An independent team of investigators announced that Lee had belatedly arrived at the police substation after he had insisted on moving by his car despite a heavy traffic jam around the Itaewon area at the time.

After leaving a restaurant where he had been having dinner with officers from his office, Lee had arrived at Noksapyeong Station at around 10 p.m. The station is located just 10 minutes by foot from the scene.

However, Lee’s car detoured from the subway station to find other ways, and he was only able to arrive at a street near the police substation around between 10:55 p.m. and 11:01 p.m.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I saw on the Korean news video footage from the restaurant of Lee eating with other officers. It can be seen that he is getting calls which were supposedly warnings of dangerous crowds that needed to be responded to in Itaewon. Lee said he would respond after he and the other officers finished eating. Instead of walking to the scene and arriving in time to help he insisted on being driven. Driving to the scene made him arrive nearly an hour later than if he would have walked thus arriving too late to prevent the first deaths.

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setnaffa
setnaffa
1 year ago

Anyone who needs a cop to tell them crowds are dangerous probably shouldn’t be outside without their mommy.

This whole thing is a political disgrace for those who play along.

But it WILL result in South Koreans being less free.

Korean Person
Korean Person
1 year ago

But it WILL result in South Koreans being less free

Dear Comrade Setnaffoving

Maybe you should stop supposedly “worrying” about the welfare of Koreans.

We Koreans know how to take care of ourselves. Thank you.

We do not need a poorly educated, consipracy theory consuming cult leader and traitor/subversive telling us how to lead our lives.

ChickenHead
ChickenHead
1 year ago

“We Koreans know how to take care of ourselves. Thank you.”

Just a friendly reminder: The subject here is Koreans not taking care of themselves.

Would you like a do-over?

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