IT TOOK an interminable,unacceptable wait of 27 years. But on April 26th the families of the 96 men, women and children who died in the Hillsborough stadium catastrophe in April 1989 finally learned the truth. A jury at a second inquest ruled that they were unlawfully killed. It decided that the police, and the match hosts,Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, the club's consultant engineers and the ambulance service all made errors that contributed to their deaths. And it concluded that the fans' behaviour on the day did not cause the catastrophe. What are the implications of the case? The setting for the catastrophe was an FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool, and held at the neutral Hillsborough ground in Sheffield. Like many English football grounds in the 1980s,Hillsborough had standing terraces and steel fences between the terraces and pitch. Inadequate facilities and planning meant that a large group of Liverpool fans built up external the ground as kick-off approached. The South Yorkshire police chose not to delay the start of the match; preferring instead to open exit gates to allow fans to enter the stadium quickly....
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Source: economist.com