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Journalism of Courage
At least 21 people were killed, mostly trampled or crushed to death at a Chicago night club on Monday when they scrambled to escape fumes from a crowd control spray used to break up a fight, fire department and local media reports said. ‘‘People just died in my arms,’’ Tonita Matthews, a young woman who was at the club and tried to help those injured, said.
Witnesses said a fight broke out between two women and a security guard used a crowd control agent, perhaps pepper spray, to break it up. Patrons began to flee the fumes and were told they had to exit via a steep front stairway, witnesses said, even though there was at least one rear exit.
There were an estimated 1,500 party goers in a second floor dance hall above the Epitome restaurant on Chicago’s near South Side when the stampede occurred before 3 am.
Matthews said she was at the front of a group which ran down the stairs and managed to get out the front door where she started giving CPR. 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. 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 said. He also said a rear exit was not open. The Chicago Fire Department said four died at the scene and many more were taken away suffering cardiac arrest. It did not have a final official death toll but the Chicago Tribune and other media outlets said a check of several hospitals to which victims were taken showed that 21 had died.
The club was in a popular black entertainment district south of downtown Chicago, across the street from the Chicago Defender newspaper.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson who came to the scene said he had been told that between 18 and 20 people had perished in the stampede and that the tragedy was clearly accidental.
The club was packed with party-goers staying out before dawn on Monday’s national holiday.
Derrick Mosley, a community activist who lives in the area, said city officials had been concerned about some violent incidents that had occurred in or near the club and that the venue was often heavily crowded. (Reuters)
