Hillsborough inquest verdict.

[KiNgPiN83]

Look at something as simple as a gig. Thousands of people all trying to get as close to the front as possible. People have been very seriously injured at the front just by virtue of the rows upon rows of people all shuffling forward behind them. The force of a crowd really is staggering.

^^This^^

I remember at a Foo Fighters gig when we were getting smashed forwards from loads of people pushing from behind and i did feel a bit panicked to the point where i wanted the current song to end purely so i could move away from the front. When you literally cant control where you are going and are moving with the crowd as everyone is moving as one it can be quite disconcerting.

The difference with modern gigs is that people regularly climb out/escape at the front and said barriers and stewards are designed to handle this.

 

[Tefal]

This is just a case of you not understanding the dynamics of any large crowd and how those dynamics played out on that day.



Thousands of people going into a space, yes. A space where thousands of people can fit. If you made the space for 100 people, those thousands of people would still try and get in.

Look at something as simple as a gig. Thousands of people all trying to get as close to the front as possible. People have been very seriously injured at the front just by virtue of the rows upon rows of people all shuffling forward behind them. The force of a crowd really is staggering.

As a really, really simple example I've been stood up on a train in an area where you could only stand single file. A loud-mouthed woman at the back of the line was cold and kept on shouting at people ahead to move forward, resulting in a massive crush at the other end as people shuffled forward only a tiny amount.

A person is only a few inches deep - it really does not take much movement at all once people are in very close proximity to cause enough pressure to suffocate someone. It isn't like people at the back had their shoulders to the people in front of them trying to force people in - it probably felt just like the usual argey bargey you get in any large group of people moving through a confined space. The difference is that these days there are stewards everywhere and things are designed from the get-go to slow down crowd movements in safe ways as they approach pinch points so that there isn't the opportunity to generate the conditions for a crush to happen.

To apportion blame, there would have needed to be some amount of either deliberate action, action despite knowing that it would (or could reasonably) lead to harm or deliberate inaction knowing that it would (or could reasonably) come to harm. Fans filing into a stadium designed to hold thousands of people, through a gate opened by the people there to get them in safely could not possibly be held to blame for what happened in the circumstances as they prevailed.

Sure, they were physically there and if none of them had been physically there then there wouldn't have been a crush - but that's a ludicrously unreasonable position to hold given the context that they are attending an organised event. Its like being to blame for getting in the way of someone's fist if you've been punched in the face - you've got it all backwards.

You day it doesnt takr much force to suffocate a lerson.

How about how much dorce it takes to bend, twist and snap a steel barrier

 

[Trucamo]

Why were the steel barriers there in the first place?

 

[drs101]

Yea for your average person, we're talking about a load of liverpuddlians at a football match here....

its attitudes like this that are part of the problem, back then this could have happened at any big semi final, they were always massive events but staged at small grounds.

 

[tom_e]

I've pulled numerous people out of pits at gigs because they've started to panic due to the movement of the crowd behind them, a lot of the time they'd have been absolutely fine but it's the moment they begin to panic they need to be pulled out regardless because they'll work themselves up to the point of fainting or hyperventilating.

Never underestimate the power of panic from a perceived threat, even if it's quite clear that there's actually little to no danger when you can see the bigger picture.

 

[balky12]

This is just a case of you not understanding the dynamics of any large crowd and how those dynamics played out on that day.

Thousands of people going into a space, yes. A space where thousands of people can fit. If you made the space for 100 people, those thousands of people would still try and get in.

Look at something as simple as a gig. Thousands of people all trying to get as close to the front as possible. People have been very seriously injured at the front just by virtue of the rows upon rows of people all shuffling forward behind them. The force of a crowd really is staggering.

That was my point though? Who's fault is this crush in your example? Everyone wanting to get to the front? Not the stewards, it's the crowd.

I know how the 'dynamics of a large crowd' work. Been in plenty.

Wasn't the gate opened to prevent a crush outside the ground? So effectively all the police did was move the crush from outside to inside the stadium?

To apportion blame, there would have needed to be some amount of either deliberate action, action despite knowing that it would (or could reasonably) lead to harm or deliberate inaction knowing that it would (or could reasonably) come to harm. Fans filing into a stadium designed to hold thousands of people, through a gate opened by the people there to get them in safely could not possibly be held to blame for what happened in the circumstances as they prevailed.

Sure, they were physically there and if none of them had been physically there then there wouldn't have been a crush - but that's a ludicrously unreasonable position to hold given the context that they are attending an organised event. Its like being to blame for getting in the way of someone's fist if you've been punched in the face - you've got it all backwards.

I just think we fundamentally disagree. Don't get me wrong, the police messed up big time. What they try to do after the fact (cover ups, etc.) is just appalling and inexcusable. I just think if the mind set and actions of some of the crowd was different, fewer people would have died...

 

[Wizzfizz]

I've pulled numerous people out of pits at gigs because they've started to panic due to the movement of the crowd behind them, a lot of the time they'd have been absolutely fine but it's the moment they begin to panic they need to be pulled out regardless because they'll work themselves up to the point of fainting or hyperventilating.

Never underestimate the power of panic from a perceived threat, even if it's quite clear that there's actually little to no danger when you can see the bigger picture.

Indeed

 

[DRZ]

You day it doesnt takr much force to suffocate a lerson.

How about how much dorce it takes to bend, twist and snap a steel barrier

I know where you're coming from and I also believe you're not a blithering idiot so you can surely see how it can happen?

I was stood maybe 20m back from the stage when SOAD played at Leeds 2003. I was stood on the side where the fencing collapsed and several people, including a friend of mine, were pretty seriously injured. I was close to everyone around me - probably touching people in front, behind and on both sides at the same time but I wasn't crushed, crushing or even remotely aware that just a short distance in front of me, people were being seriously hurt.

Like I said in an earlier post, the force of a crowd is staggering. It doesn't need the tacit participation of each member of the crowd, it just happens. The force is just a result of the number of people and the conditions. The further back you go, the "easier" it feels and by the time you're starting to feel uncomfortably pressed by people comfortably moving forward behind you, you're killing people up ahead.

 

[McGray]

So 27 years of discussion, multiple inquests and a verdict that fans behaviour played no part in the incident, some guys on OcUK know better?

Sigh....

 

[tom_e]

So 27 years of discussion, multiple inquests and a verdict that fans behaviour played no part in the incident, some guys on OcUK know better?

Sigh....

It's a discussion forum and people are entitled to their opinions whether they agree or not, what did you expect?

If everyone had just said fair enough and agreed with the first inquest then we'd never have gotten these answers.

 

[drs101]

So 27 years of discussion, multiple inquests and a verdict that fans behaviour played no part in the incident, some guys on OcUK know better?

Sigh....

it doesn't matter, the authorities had a duty of care, they viewed them as animals, didnt take action when the problems started and they they lied about and the government covered it up.

 

[DRZ]

Wasn't the gate opened to prevent a crush outside the ground? So effectively all the police did was move the crush from outside to inside the stadium?

Turning a crush in which some people might have got minor injuries into a crush where people were absolutely certain to die doesn't somehow make it the fault of the crowd.

Crowds happen all the time and they need proper management to prevent harm. When crowds are not properly managed, people get hurt. When they are properly managed, everyone is safe. I can't be any plainer than that really - 100% not the fault of the crowd.

NB there's a world of difference between a well-behaved crowd involved in a crush and a crowd causing mayhem like the London Riots etc. If you're in any way conflating the two then you're irreconcilably wide of the mark.

 

[Danthus]

Some of the families have just called for the heads of the current heads of South Yorkshire Police and the Ambulance Service to resign.

 

[estebanrey]

And again, all of the subsequent reports and inquiries into Hillsborough have said that there was nothing extraordinary about fans behaviour that day.

So there was a hooligan element then? In the 80s it would have been extraordinary if there wasn't!

 

[Wizzfizz]

^ No? You just said that.

 

[ColdAsIce]

I still dont understand how it happened sirely if your in a tunnel and its clearly full ahead and you cant get out you dont jist start pushing forward you stand and wait?

Have you seriously never been in crowds like this before? People use their whole body weight and push/surge forward. Also add to the fact it's a cup final that has started and people are wanting to go watch their team.

 

[dowie]

just to throw this in - eye witnesses also cite fans, including fans without tickets as being part of the problem on the day;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-29223563

account from a turnstile operator for example

Mr Copeland, who was 19 at the time, said the crowd had been "steady and in good spirits" before 14:15 BST, but had become inundated from that point forward.
He said he "tended to fear for my life" until Gate C was opened at 14:52, believing "the turnstiles were coming down".
The jury has previously heard that opening the gate allowed up to 2,000 fans to enter the ground in five minutes.
Mr Copeland said: "I had seen people coming through the turnstiles that didn't have a ticket or certainly didn't produce a ticket [and] who were out of breath.

"They were crushed, they were scared, they were fearful, they were angry, they were annoyed and it got to the point where I was letting them in, regardless of whether they had a ticket or not, as fast as I possibly could.
"I just kept my foot on the pedal and I got them through."
He said he could "feel the crush... the turnstile rocking, I could feel the dust from the turnstile shaking".
Agreeing with an assertion that there were not enough entrances provided for the fans, Mr Copeland said he had "always believed" the disaster was caused by those who "came too late and without tickets".
"Everybody that I had talked with and I had a laugh with prior to two o'clock had come early enough and was stood at the front of the West Stand and my own personal view is that people that came last, without tickets, crushed them."

 

[FuriousGeorge]

The posters on here trying their hardest to still blame the fans; Why? What are you going to achieve through this? Every single inquiry into this in the modern era has cleared the fans of any wrong doing.

Are you just deliberately trying to antagonise people?

 

[dowie]

Have you seriously never been in crowds like this before? People use their whole body weight and push/surge forward. Also add to the fact it's a cup final that has started and people are wanting to go watch their team.

well yeah that is a factor - the reality is that crowds are different too a crowd at a football match is generally a bit different to one at a rugby match or a cricket match

 

[cheesyboy]

Comment on the Guardian's site:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/26/hillsborough-families-27-years#comment-73107676

I wrote this a few years ago.

The evening of the tragedy I was 29 and I was sitting in a pub after travelling back from Villa Park and watching Everton beat Norwich in the other semi-final. Two minibuses had left that pub car park earlier that day; all off to enjoy a football match and a day out.

At 315 a buzz went around the stand the Everton supporters were in; some of the lads had radios - these were the days before mobile phones and a rumour went around that a stand had collapsed and there were 10 dead... 10 became 30. At half time all anyone was thinking about was the events happening at Hillsborough as the scale of the tragedy unfolded.

The game ended - we won 1-0 and on the way out one of the lads asked a West Midlands police officer what was happening... I'll never forget his reply

"70 Scousers dead... and if you lot kick off, there'll be another 70"

The trip home was in silence, except for the long queues at phone boxes before we reached the motorway and at service stations. I phoned my mum...

"Mum, just to let you know I'm okay... I was at the other game.."

A long pause

"Have you heard from our Stevie yet"? (my cousin)

She had, he had been on the mini-bus that went to Hillsborough.

We got to the pub and we waited for the other mini-bus. Lads who'd been taking the **** out of each other's team the night before and having daft fall outs were now waiting in hope, nervous daft jokes - some prayers muttered under our breaths... and the mini-bus pulled up and then the scanning of faces to see who was missing. They were lucky they all come back...

Well, I say they all came back - but I know that most of those lads left a little bit of themselves behind on the Leppings Lane Terrace; you could see it in their faces - I'd seen that look before in Falklands veterans - they'd seen horror and it was never going to leave them - not first thing in the morning - not last thing at night.

They survived - but it wasn't going to end for them that night - it took 23 years for the misplaced guilt to be finally expunged - too late for some. When I think of the later alcoholism and broken marriages that characterised some of the lads from that mini-bus - I can't help thinking that the events of that day and the 23 years of being under suspicion of contributing to the deaths of their friends in the most callous way by the national media and the oh so ****ing original innuendo spreaders and professional character assassination; I wonder how they carried on.

So to the lads (and girls) who came back and to the families who endured - my blue scouse heart goes out to you and if I've one bit of advice... don't let it rest here; take them to the highest courts in the land and get those disgraceful verdicts of accidental death overturned.

I don't deem to speak for all Evertonians - but as far as me and my mates are concerned - you never walked alone

I hope you find some peace