“They Could Get Crushed” Police Ignored 112 Reports Made Four Hours Before the Tragic Event

Citizens mourn the victims in a memorial space for the Itaewon Halloween crowd crush in front of the Itaewon Station Exit 1 in Yongsan-gu, Seoul on November 1. Han Su-bin

Four hours before the tragic Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon, the police received a stream of 112 reports claiming that the people were about to be crushed to death, but failed to respond properly. Despite that citizens clearly informed the police of the dangerous situation, they failed to take appropriate safety measures, such as dispatch additional officers to the site. The police had insisted that the massive injuries to human lives could not have been predicted, but it turns out the tragedy was man-made, due to poor responses on the field.

On November 1, the National Police Agency announced that they received a total of eleven 112 calls reporting the hazards in the Itaewon area in Yongsan-gu, Seoul from 6:34 p.m. to 10:11 p.m. on October 29. According to the transcript of the reports, at 6:34 p.m. October 29, one person called 112 and said, “The people can’t come down, but they keep pushing from the back. I think they could get crushed,” and asked the police to come and control the situation.

Starting with this call, citizens continued to call and tell the police about the dangers in Itaewon saying, “It’s a mess,” “I think an accident might occur,” and “It’s out of control.” But the police simply treated the calls as complaints of general inconveniences and did not bother to respond. Eventually, around 9 p.m., an hour before the accident, the police began receiving reports saying, “A major accident is about to happen,” “There is a threat of a crowd crush,” and “Please restrict passage so that the people can move in one way.”

At 10:11 p.m., right before the stampede, the sound of people screaming could be heard from the other end of the line. Yet, the police arrived on the scene later than the firefighters, who received a report at 10:15 p.m. Later, a massive number of casualties resulted from the crowd crush, and the police received over a hundred reports, much more than before.

The police admitted that their response on site was inadequate. Commissioner General Yoon Hee-keun said, “We believe that our response on the field in the process of handling the 112 reports was inadequate,” and added, “We will thoroughly investigate to see if our overall response on the field was adequate, and whether the actions taken by the commanding officers and employees of all levels were appropriate.” According to the police, of the eleven reports they received before the accident, they concluded four after dispatching officers to the site and six after speaking with the person over the phone. The result of how they handled one case was unclear.

There were signs indicating a potential disaster even on the day before the accident. On October 28, the Itaewon Police Branch Office received a total of 67 112 reports. Among them, ten involved drunkenness and loud noises, considered to be directly linked to the Halloween festival.

Preparations were extremely lacking even compared to the Itaewon Global Village Festival held in the same location two weeks before the accident. In the case of the Global Village Festival, the Itaewon Special Tourist Zone Organization held over a hundred meetings with the local government organizing the event. Meanwhile, there was only one meeting on the Halloween festival with the police and local government on October 26, three days before the accident. A representative of the Itaewon Special Tourist Zone Organization said, “For the Global Village Festival, we discussed all the details of the festival including safety issues with the local government,” and added, “In fact, we held meetings all year long.”

What’s more, the ideas for the Halloween festival mentioned in the meeting were not properly implemented. The Organization representative said, “In the meeting, an official from the Yongsan gu office said they would instruct restaurant owners on the outdoor tables with police cooperation since they interfered with passage.” But on the day of the accident, most of the restaurant and bar tables outside were still there, contributing to the congestion in the alley and the crowd crush.