Yoon Hee Keun, the chief of the Korean National Police Agency, knew nothing about the situation in Itaewon until he went to sleep.
It was reported that while the Halloween celebration is ongoing in Itaewon, Seoul on October 29th, Yoon Hee Keun, the commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency (hereinafter referred to as NPA), was visiting the city of Jecheon in the North Chungcheong Province, which was about 170 km to the southwest of Soul.
In particular, Mr. Yoon went to sleep at around 11 PM (KST) without being notified about the crowd crush. Meanwhile, according to media outlet Yonhap News, the first report of cardiac arrest in Itaewon appeared at around 10:15 PM (KST) of the same day.
This means that deaths and casualties were already being report in Itaewon around 45 minutes before Mr. Yoon fell asleep, yet he knew nothing about the tragedy unfolding right in the heart of Seoul.
Yonhap also reported that at 11:32PM (KST), Mr. Yoon received a text message on massive death counts in Itaewon from an emergency situation officer at the NPA, but did not read it. The same officer called Yoon 20 minutes after, but received no answer.
It was not until 0:14 AM (KST) on October 30th, did the officer finally reach Yoon through a phone call, prompting him to immediately depart for Seoul.
Then, 4 minutes after, Mr. Yoon phoned the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, ordering an all-out dispatch to handle the disaster.
As it took Yoon a long time to travel, he was only able to command a meeting of police chiefs regarding the Itaewon crowd crush at 2:30 AM on October 30.
Meanwhile, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol received the first report on the Itaewon crowd crush at 11:01 PM (October 29), and the Minister of Interior and Safety Lee Sang Min, who oversees the police, was notified for the first time at 11:20 PM on the same day.
All the late responses, late notifications, and late interactions indicated that the management and command systems of the police were ineffective during the Itaewon tragedy, said Yonhap.
Source: K14
