A jury has found that the dozens of soccer fans who were crushed to death at a 1989 British soccer match came because of police mistakes. The 96 fans who died at Hillsborough Stadium were “unlawfully killed,” the verdict said. Most of the victims suffocated after police opened an exit gate in order to relieve congestion near the stadium before the match even started. Many fans were trampled on the ground or pushed against steel fencing until they died. More than 700 total people were wounded in the event, and for years the police and media had blamed the crowd for its own crushing incident.
