Chicago Night Club Stampede Kills 21

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By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Twenty-one people were killed in a stampede at a Chicago night club on Monday when they tried to escape fumes from a crowd control spray used to break up a fight and were crushed behind blocked doors, officials said.

"People just died in my arms," Tonita Matthews, a young woman who was at the club and tried to help those injured, told the Chicago NBC television affiliate.


Another young woman who lived told of a man in the tangle of bodies who asked her to tell his mother he loved her.


Relatives and friends of the victims combed area hospitals, and some were directed to the city's morgue to identify the dead, emerging stricken. A makeshift memorial of flowers and written prayers was left outside the club.


Witnesses said a fight broke out between two women, and a security guard used a crowd control agent, perhaps pepper spray or Mace, to break it up. Patrons began to flee the fumes and were told they had to exit down a steep front stairway.


Some of those trying to flee apparently tripped or fell in that stairwell, causing a human avalanche. Bodies, living and dead, piled up behind a double glass exit door that was apparently jammed shut by the crush. Patrons said only one door was open to prevent people from sneaking in without paying.


The dead were "pinned down by a stampeding crowd," said Police Supt. Terry Hillard.


Fire Commissioner James Joyce told a news conference there were 21 killed and at least 30 injured. Hospitals reported more than 50 injured.


Joyce said there were a "number of fire code violations ... related to locked and blocked doors" at the rear of the building, including one where rescue workers found four people in cardiac arrest after they pried the door open.


Most of those who died, however, were killed at the bottom of the main front door stairwell.


Witnesses said about 1,500 party goers were packed in a second-floor dance hall above the Epitome restaurant on Chicago's near South Side when the stampede occurred. Firemen received the first call for help at 2:23 a.m. CST.


Matthews said she was at the front of a group which ran down the stairs. She managed to get out the front door where she started giving first aid. While some responded she said she knows at least one man died in her arms and fears she lost others as well. "I seen so many people on top of each other dead," she said.


TRAPPED IN A PILE OF BODIES


Lamont James Jr., who works for the Chicago park district, said he was trapped for a while in a pile of bodies on the front stairs but managed to escape.


"The bodies were literally piled up from the top to the bottom of the stairs," he told WGN television in Chicago. He also said a rear exit to the building was not open.


One man said he helped pull a pregnant woman from the stack of bodies, and saw two victims whose faces were crushed and bloodied.


The club, in a black entertainment district south of downtown Chicago, was crowded as party goers stayed out before dawn on Monday's Presidents Day holiday. The Epitome is an upscale restaurant on the first floor, while the large dance floor above called "E-2" features music by disc jockeys.


Derrick Mosley, a community activist who lives in the area, said some in the area had been concerned about some violent incidents that had occurred in or near the club and that the venue was often heavily crowded.

The police superintendent said investigators were reviewing videotape from cameras at the club in an effort to uncover what happened but had no firm word on exactly what caused the stampede. He said the records showed 80 police reports involving the establishment since 2000, mostly battery and similar crimes.

Joyce, the fire commissioner, said the establishment was inspected in the autumn and no violations were found. He also said investigators had not determined how many were inside at the time of the tragedy.