Seoul Police Chief’s Final Trial 2 Years After the Itaewon Disaster
Key Issue: Was There a Concrete Duty of Care for the Seoul Police Chief?
The first trial sentencing of Kim Kang-ho, the former Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency chief, charged in connection with the Itaewon disaster, will take place on the 17th, nearly two years after the incident occurred on October 29, 2022.
The Seoul Western District Court’s 12th Criminal Division is set to hold the sentencing trial at 10:30 am for Kim, as well as Ryu Mi-jin, the former 112 Situation Management Officer, and Jung Mo, the former 112 Situation Team Leader, who were on duty at the time. The prosecution has requested a five-year prison sentence for Kim, and three years and two and a half years for Ryu and Jung, respectively.
Kim is accused of failing to adequately deploy police forces and neglecting his duty as a command and supervisory figure, despite foreseeing potential crowd-related accidents from internal reports before Halloween 2022. This allegedly aggravated the scale of casualties. Ryu and Jung are charged with failing to promptly report critical 112 emergency calls to superiors, exacerbating the disaster.
The critical issue is whether a specific duty of care was expected of Kim to prevent the Itaewon disaster. In a related ruling last month, police officials from surrounding districts were judged liable depending on how the law explicitly defined their duty of care. The court found this explicit duty applicable under police law to protect citizens, resulting in a three-year sentence for the former Yongsan Police Chief.
In contrast, Yongsan District Office officials were acquitted due to their duties being considered abstract rather than specific. Should this principle apply to Kim, there is potential to hold him accountable. Police law specifies crowd management as a matter under metropolitan police jurisdiction, suggesting Kim had authority over the deployment of personnel to maintain order on the day of the disaster.
Kim also had command over riot police operations. According to police regulations, metropolitan police chiefs can deploy riot units, specifying duration and tasks as necessary.
However, if Kim didn’t foresee the seriousness of a potential accident, questioning the lack of riot unit deployment becomes challenging. Kim’s defense has focused on this as a primary argument for acquittal. During the closing arguments last month, Kim’s lawyer stated it was difficult to predict a large-scale crush accident without specific spatiotemporal cues, arguing that any hindsight suggesting Kim could have anticipated such was merely a cognitive bias.
The prosecution argued that Kim could have anticipated the accident from internal reports regarding Halloween crowd concerns, to which Kim’s defense countered that the reports did not indicate any foreseeable risk and that Kim had already emphasized careful preparation to the Seoul police officials in two separate instances.