16 Investigated Over Love Parade Crush

Der Spiegel said top cops and senior Love Parade staff are amongst those facing prosecution though Duisburg Mayor Adolf Sauerland and Love Parade owner Rainer Schaller are not currently in the frame.

"The determination of an initial suspicion does not necessarily mean that the accused will have to answer to a court," a statement by the public prosecutor's office also stated (De Spiegel: http://bit.ly/gxacHT ).

The 21 revellers who died were crushed in a road tunnel which served as the entry and exit point to the Duisberg site after a crowd bottleneck developed trapping thousands of people inside the tunnel.

Terrifying clips of what happened were posted on Youtube as it happened revealing startling similarities with the description of typical crowd tragedies presented by US crowd expert Dr John J. Fruin at a safety conference in the UK in 1993.

“Most crowd incidents exhibit a lack of front to back communication. People in the rear of the crowd press forward while those in front experience severe distress,” Dr Fruin said in a presentation he made in a speech about ‘the Causes and Prevention of Crowd Disasters’.

“This is due in part to the flow process itself. The lighter densities in the rear allow freer movement while those in front are immobile and under great pressure. The collapsing of front ranks gives a false perception of forward movement,” he said.

“Virtually all crowd deaths are due to compressive asphyxia and not the "trampling" reported by the news media,” he added.

Details of the Love Parade investigations emerged days after three clubbers died in Budapest following a reported crowd stampede at local nightspot West-Balkan,

Press reports claimed the venue had been dangerously overcrowded, while Hungarian Interior minister Sandor Pinter told reporters: ‘Human irresponsibility caused the deaths of the three victims’.

http://www.gkstill.com/Fruin.html (‘John J Fruin: “At occupancies of about 7 persons per square meter the crowd becomes almost a fluid mass. Shock waves can be propagated through the mass sufficient to lift people off of their feet and propel them distances of 3 m (10 ft) or more. People may be literally lifted out of their shoes, and have clothing torn off . . .”)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2onoJLq2-8&feature=related (Mass Panic)

http://bit.ly/98rabP (Love Parade, filmed from inside the tunnel)