A Seoul police officer, under investigation after the crowd crush, is found dead - NPR

Among the flowers near astatine the alleyway wherever much than 150 radical were killed successful a assemblage crush, a poster references the clip — 6:34 p.m. — erstwhile constabulary received the archetypal telephone informing of the unsafe assemblage size, astir 4 hours earlier the crush turned deadly. Kang Jin-Kyu/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Kang Jin-Kyu/AFP via Getty Images

Among the flowers near astatine the alleyway wherever much than 150 radical were killed successful a assemblage crush, a poster references the clip — 6:34 p.m. — erstwhile constabulary received the archetypal telephone informing of the unsafe assemblage size, astir 4 hours earlier the crush turned deadly.

Kang Jin-Kyu/AFP via Getty Images

A South Korean constabulary serviceman who was nether probe successful transportation to the deadly assemblage crush connected Halloween play successful Seoul has been recovered dead.

The policeman, a 55-year-old serviceman identified lone by his surname, Jeong, was successful complaint of quality affairs astatine the Yongsan territory constabulary station, which oversees the country wherever the assemblage crush took place.

On the nighttime of Oct. 29, much than 100,000 partygoers flocked to the Itaewon country of Seoul, crowding bars and packing the neighborhood's constrictive streets and alleys.

But the assemblage grew retired of control. In 1 tiny alleyway adjacent to a hotel, radical became packed truthful tightly that they could not move; eventually, much than 150 radical were killed and astir 200 much injured.

Jeong was accused of destroying grounds that constabulary knew of the assemblage risk. He was recovered dormant successful his location connected Friday, South Korea's Yonhap quality bureau reported. The origin of his decease is nether investigation.

The constabulary effect has been the absorption of criticism

Seoul's constabulary unit has travel nether disapproval and scrutiny for their actions that nighttime — some its nonaccomplishment to negociate the assemblage safely earlier the crush, and its dilatory effect afterward — and for however it handled its effect successful the days that followed, initially deflecting blame.

Police had anticipated a ample crowd, yet did not enforce assemblage power measures, authorities say. Just 137 officers were assigned to Itaewon that evening, and they were tasked with transgression enforcement, not assemblage control, authorities say.

Dispatchers received astatine slightest 11 exigency calls earlier the crush turned fatal — the archetypal arriving astatine 6:34 p.m., astir 4 hours earlier authorities accidental the archetypal deaths took place. But Seoul constabulary dispatched fewer officers successful response.

Opposition lawmakers person called for a parliamentary probe into the stampede. And the families of immoderate victims accidental they program to record a people enactment suit to get compensation from the government.

Earlier this month, a peculiar probe squad from the country's nationalist constabulary unit raided the section constabulary agencies successful Seoul and the Yongsan ward, wherever Itaewon is located.

Jeong, arsenic the quality main astatine the Yongsan station, has been accused of destroying grounds that constabulary knew of the assemblage risk. He was suspected of deleting an interior study that contained warnings astir imaginable information risks astir Halloween.