Preventing a Second Itaewon Tragedy... Police to Create Crowd Management Manual

Establishment of the 112 Duty Mobile Unit

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Jo] The police have decided to prepare a crowd management manual by early next month as part of efforts to address issues such as the reporting system revealed during the response to the Itaewon disaster. A 'duty mobile unit' that can be independently operated by the city and provincial police 112 situation rooms is also expected to be established.

According to the police on the 19th, the National Police Agency held the first full meeting of the 'Police Great Innovation Task Force (TF)' yesterday to prevent a recurrence of the Itaewon disaster and selected the '9 immediate action tasks' including these measures. The immediate action tasks include producing a crowd accident prevention manual containing crowd management guidelines by type and stage that can be immediately used on-site when an accident is expected, and operating a mobile unit that the 112 situation room chief can directly command and operate.

The police also plan to revise the important and urgent situation reporting system so that when a disaster crisis report is received at the 112 situation room, the security situation can be automatically transmitted. They will also develop a '112 Incident Transmission App' that automatically relays important 112 report details to station chiefs and others. A qualification evaluation system for police chiefs and other managers will be introduced. The scope of the command competency evaluation, currently used for promotion from superintendent to senior superintendent (police chief), will be expanded to include serving senior superintendents, and the 'Personnel Operation Regulations' will be amended so that commanders who fail the evaluation cannot be appointed as police chiefs.

The National Police Agency will provide special training to middle managers such as police station security chiefs, 112 situation room chiefs, and police mobile unit commanders who actually operate police forces at disaster sites, to ensure proper judgment and command in crowded situations. The training will be held on the 24th and 25th at the Police Human Resources Development Institute. Experienced police officers with on-site command experience will be assigned as heads of city and provincial police situation rooms first, and to strengthen response guidelines for various risk situations, repeated drills by disaster type will be conducted regularly.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.