Former Seoul police official cites presidential office move in Itaewon crowd-crush response

Former Seoul police official Lee Im-jae, head of the Yongsan Police Station at the time of the 10·29 Itaewon crowd crush, testified on November 12 at a hearing convened by a special investigative panel probing the disaster. The session was held at the Bank of Korea Building in Seoul’s Jung District.

Lee said that moving the presidential office to Yongsan played a role in how resources were allocated during Halloween preparations, and he suggested that if the presidential office had not moved there, the likelihood of such a catastrophe would be significantly reduced. He added that the possibility is not 100% but he believes it to be very low.

The former chief explained that during the Halloween period, many staffers were redistributed to the presidential office, which, he said, left fatigue accumulating among Yongsan Station personnel and weakened response capacity. He stressed that his remarks reflect constraints rather than a desire to dodge responsibility.

“I wasn’t trying to avoid accountability, but there were many limits to what I could do,” Lee said, describing the operational constraints he faced during the incident.

Former National Police Agency Commissioner General Yoon Hee-geun, who also testified, acknowledged that there was a security gap on the day of the disaster and that if danger were recognized or anticipated, resources should have been allocated more fully. He told the panel that the police, including at the top rank, bear responsibility and apologized to the victims’ families.

The testimony comes as the Special Investigation Committee continues its work to determine the causes of the Itaewon disaster and to propose reforms to prevent recurrence. The investigation has focused on crowd management, interagency coordination, and the allocation of security resources in the capital’s central district.

For U.S. readers, the proceedings illustrate ongoing concerns about crowd safety at large urban events and the way high-level government staffing decisions affect local police deployment and incident response. The discussion about the presidential office’s location and its impact on security planning highlights the broader issue of how governance decisions can influence day-to-day public safety management in major cities. The case also reinforces the relevance of proactive risk assessment, clear command structures, and interagency coordination for preventing mass-casualty events in large urban environments.