After the stadium tragedy in 1960s and the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Forest in 1980s, South Yorkshire police still failed to pay attention to the safety of fans. No matter what disputes there are afterwards, there is no doubt that the police should ensure the personal safety of fans inside and outside the stadium. However, the "security program" does not specify how the police should be responsible, but only mentions how to evacuate people in the case of bomb warning and fire: senior police officers use codes to evacuate through broadcast supervision. As for what to do when there are too many fans entering the stadium, the stands are too congested, or there is an emergency in the stands, the outline does not explain.
According to the security plan, most local bars will cooperate with the police and agree to close from lunch to dusk. Even if a few people insist on doing business, make sure that fans are not drunk. Obviously, the police regarded alcohol as the number one threat to safety from beginning to end, and did not pay enough attention to the crowds gathered outside the stadium and the congestion at the turnstiles. There is no emergency plan to delay the kick-off, open the exit, prohibit the stands from continuing to pick up people, and close the tunnel. This instruction is based on past experience, with good intentions, but too optimistic. The police did not learn from the practice of the previous two years, but only focused on monitoring the behavior of fans, without paying attention to their well-being.
Dukenfield, the new police chief of South Yorkshire, believes that he has inherited a tried-and-tested team and an effective program that can be copied. There is no reason to think about it. In fact, he has no experience to think about anything else. After taking office, Dukenfield did not go to Hillsborough to step on the spot. Even though he visited Millwall on Wednesday, he just handed over the details to his subordinates, visited it himself and made friends with local celebrities. He also mistakenly believes that the safety of fans is the responsibility of the club. From the moment Liverpool fans set foot in South Yorkshire, they went to the stadium under a series of monitoring such as police tracking, guidance, spot checks and body searches. Buses and private cars are stopped by the police from time to time. The police will decide whether you are fit to enter the stadium to watch the ball until you are drunk. Vehicles that have been inspected will continue to move forward with the label of "inspected", but most vehicles are delayed due to inspection. When the fans walk to the stadium, their freedom of movement is also restricted, because the streets along the way are closed and quiet.
Hillsborough is only two miles from the center of Sheffield, surrounded by residential areas, with poor traffic. This stadium was built 90 years ago. The south stand is the VIP area, and below it is the players' locker room. Players from both sides came out from under the south stand. Reconstruction of East Stand 1986, with more than 20,000 seats and canopy. The North Stand is located above the houses and can accommodate nearly 10,000 people. The emergency room and the police workstation are under this shelf. The west stand is located in the residential building of Lieping Lane. It was added during the World Cup in 1966 and can accommodate more than 10000 people.
There are six double-opened iron gates on this side of Lieping Lane. Go into the three doors on the left, followed by a clearing leading to the turnstile of 16, and the other three iron gates leading to the seven turnstiles. These 23 turnstiles mainly transport spectators from the west stand and the north stand. The total capacity of the two stands has reached 25,000 people, and more than 30,000 spectators from other stands have entered through 60 turnstiles. This means that it is a typical bottleneck to deal with the queue of more than 25,000 people in the narrow area on the side of Lieping Lane. You can imagine what kind of confusion these people will have when they shout. Liverpool fans are arranged to enter here.
Before noon, the turnstile opened, and the first Liverpool fans happily entered the stadium, but the traffic was sparse, because the tickets were printed asking fans to be present at 2: 45. After 2 noon, the number of fans began to surge, and the police inspection at the entrance slowed down the speed of passing through the turnstile. At 2: 30, half an hour before kick-off, there were still 5000 spectators outside the stadium who wanted to enter.
There are more and more fans in the bottleneck area. There are walls and barbed wire in front and left and right, but there is a breathable gap in the back. The new fans have blocked this place. Due to the failure of the walkie-talkie, the police officers in the venue were not aware of the situation outside the venue. The radio called on the fans outside the stadium not to be crowded. It was so loud that it was impossible to hear the sound of the radio clearly. The police lost control of the situation. Before the 10 game, players from both teams began to enter the stadium. Fans outside the stadium can hear cheers, but they are still trapped outside the stadium. When the fans were still pouring in, the game was not postponed because of them. 5000 people tried to cross the turnstile, and their squeezing outside the turnstile caused the police to worry. Marshall, the police officer in charge of maintaining order outside the west stand, asked the command center for permission to open Gate C (originally used as an exit door without turnstiles) for fans to enter. At this time, someone clearly heard the voice from his walkie-talkie: "Please open door C!
The command center is located in the southwest corner of the stadium, above the stands of Lieping Lane, overlooking the stadium. Dukenfield and Murray have seen the crowded scene in front of the 2: 30 transfer gate through the monitor, but they decided that they would never postpone the game unless they had to. At 2: 47, Marshall's request arrived at the command center. Dukenfield's intuition was to refuse the request. He is worried that the hard objects such as bottles carried by fans after entering the stadium will cause hooliganism in the stadium, but he is not so nervous about the murders that may be caused by crowded trampling. He looked at the monitor and found that door C "suddenly opened". It turned out that the police drove away a fan without a ticket, but 20 fans quickly rushed in. A policeman tried to push the fans out of the fence and prevent them from passing through the gate. At this time, Darkenfield judged Marshall's request: "Open the door, or someone will be seriously injured or killed." As the commander-in-chief who has no experience in football security, he only made this decision by virtue of years of exchanges and trust with Marshall. When Deputy Sheriff Murray connected the walkie-talkies of all the police officers, he asked, "Mr. Duckenfeld, are you sure you want to open the gate?" Dukenfield paused for a moment, as if it had been a long time. "There may be someone dead or seriously injured outside. I have no choice but to open the door." He looked at Murray and said, "Open the door."
So, the gate of hell was opened.
Many fans swarmed in and broke into houses. What appears in front of people is an underground passage leading to the platform. At that time, football hooligans were rampant in English stadiums. In order to better maintain order at the scene, the police used barbed wire to divide the stands of Hillsborough West Observatory into several areas. Located at the exit of the underpass are residential areas 3 and 4 (just behind the Liverpool goal). The safety license of Hillsborough Stadium has expired 10 years, which shows that these two communities can accommodate 2,200 people, but their actual maximum capacity is less than 1700 people. The police or security personnel should have stood at the entrance of the passage to guide people to divert to the stands on both sides, but they didn't. This has caused extreme congestion in residential areas No.3 and No.4 in the middle, while the stands on both sides are ten rooms and nine empty rooms.
More than 2000 people poured in, and the number of people standing in the stands reached twice the capacity. At first, there was room to walk in the stands, but soon people could not move their arms, let alone their bodies. Some people are screaming while others are silent and unconscious. No one can move, not even an inch.
The game had already started, and Liverpool's first shot hit the opposing post, causing a stir at the scene. The fans who are still in the underground passage are more anxious after hearing the sound, and they are desperately pushing forward, hoping to enter the stadium as soon as possible. At this time, the No.3 and No.4 communities were already overcrowded, and a large number of fans at the forefront were squeezed into the barbed wire. What is even more regrettable is that the fans who keep squeezing into the stadium from the rear have no idea what happened in front of the stage, they just rush in. Some people's faces are even squeezed out of shape. People began to be silent, unconscious, unable to breathe, and some people clearly heard the sound of sternum fracture.
People around them were found dead, with their eyes bulging and their tongues sticking out. Many people shouted at the police on duty in front of the barbed wire to let them open the door. But the police seem to be stuck where they are, unmoved. If the police on duty at this time can open the small door on the barbed wire as soon as possible and let the fans enter the venue, many lives can be saved. But they were indifferent, because the order they got from Dukenfield before the game was: Never open the door and let anyone out without permission.
People can only find their own way to live. Some fans in the back row were pulled up by the fans in the upper stands to escape, while the fans on both sides climbed over the barbed wire on the side and climbed to the stands in the air on both sides. Fans in front of the platform began to climb over the barbed wire to escape. At this time, a small door in the barbed wire was knocked down, and some fans were able to escape through this passage, while others continued to climb over the barbed wire. Finally, the barbed wire finally collapsed under the weight of people. The people behind also forgot to step on the dead or the living and rushed into the stadium. It was not until 3: 06 that the police officers rushed to the front of the barbed wire and found out the real situation. They hurriedly informed the referee to stop the game and began to save people. At the same time, some policemen are still firmly carrying out the task of defending the other three corners of the stadium, preventing Liverpool fans from approaching Nottingham Forest fans. Forest fans thought at first that only Liverpool fans broke into the stadium. After learning that there might be a tragedy of death and injury, some fans tried to break through the police wall and carry the injured fans to the ambulance, but they were driven back. 15 At 3 am, when FA officials Graham Kelly and Glenn Keaton and Xie Wednesday's club secretary Macrael came to the command center, Dukenfeld put all the blame on Liverpool fans, claiming that the fans rushed into the gate. A few minutes later, Kelly relayed the lie to the media all over the world: a shocking disaster happened, and Liverpool fans should take full responsibility for it.
Dukenfield has been secretive, lacking decisive decision-making, and the on-site rescue work is quite chaotic. The uninjured fans began to help heal the wounded and save the dying. Some people tried artificial respiration, and some people converted billboards into temporary stretchers.
17 at 3 o'clock, the first casualties were sent to the gymnasium on nearby penniston road. It is puzzling that the casualties were not taken to the hospital by ambulance as soon as possible, but moved to a gymnasium without medical function, which delayed valuable treatment time. Later, 44 ambulances arrived outside the stadium one after another, but the police only released one. Due to too many casualties, this only "life-saving car" can only keep turning back and transporting the dead and wounded out of the stadium. What is even more ridiculous is that one injured person was diagnosed as dead when he was carried into the ambulance, another dying injured person was carried up, and the third injured person could not get on the bus. Because time can't wait any longer, this "life-saving car" carrying the dead sped away. Of the last 96 dead, only 14 were taken to the hospital, of which 12 had died when they arrived at the hospital.
From 3: 06 to 3: 45, Liverpool manager Dalglish shouted on the stadium radio to keep the fans calm. At 4 o'clock, Addis, the Chief Superintendent of South Yorkshire, arrived at the stadium and met with the police. At 5 o'clock, the coroner Pope informed Addis Ababa that all the bodies must stay where they are, waiting for photos and identification. At 6: 45, the coroner arrived to determine the autopsy steps. At 9: 30, after all preparations were made, the long and painful appraisal process began ... 94 fans were killed and 766 were injured that day. Four days later, the death toll rose to 95, and Li Nicole, 14 years old, died in the hospital. 1In March, 993, Tony Brand, who had been in a coma for nearly four years, also passed away. Among the 96 victims, there are people in their 70s and a child who just turned 10.