UK jury blames police over 1989 Hillsborough disaster
A British jury has found that the 96 Liverpool fans who died at a soccer match in Sheffield, England 27 years ago were unlawfully killed and were victims of police mistakes.
On April 15, 1989, 96 Liverpool soccer fans were crushed and trampled to death at an English soccer match at Hillsborough Stadium, a tragedy that convulsed Britain and shocked the world.
The jury answered yes to the crucial question of whether “there was probably any error or omission by the police which probably caused or contributed to the loss of lives in the disaster,” in which victims suffocated to death as they entered an F.A. Cup semifinal between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
The jury also rejected the notion that the fans were responsible for the deaths.
Taken together, the findings amounted to vindication for the families of the victims and the survivors of the tragedy, who had been fighting for years to prove that the fans were victims of police conduct rather than agents of their own demise.
Senior police and security officials had initially blamed the victims for causing their own deaths, which an independent inquiry later called “the most serious tragedy in UK sporting history.”
Fans were killed after the police opened a gate in an attempt to lessen congestion outside the stadium before the game began. In the chaos that ensued, some victims were crushed against steel fencing.
Others were trampled, and more than 700 people were injured.
The verdict comes more than two years after the inquest began, on April 1, 2014, and after a decades-long push by relatives, fans and the Liverpool club for a full accounting.
The verdict capped the longest case heard by a jury in British legal history.
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