Early Monday morning, 21 people died when hundreds rushed downstairs to exit E2 nightclub in Chicago.
According to Associated Press, at least one security guard started to use Mace and pepper spray to break up a fight.
Although there were three exits on the first floor of the building, the crowd rushed only to the main entrance.
Firefighters had to actually pry a rear door open with a sledgehammer to create another escape route.
As a result, twenty people died of cardiac arrest, suffocation, or being crushed.
Fifty others were rushed to the hospital.
However, had the owners of E2 followed correct fire safety guidelines these people would still be alive.
Last summer the nightclub was cited for 11 building code violations.
One of those was because E2 did not have enough exits. The exact reason why so many patrons lost their lives.
In agreement, Chicago Fire Commissioner James Joyce said the second floor of the nightclub should not have been opened.
The ignorance of the security guards hired by E2’s owners adds even more proof to why the club should be closed.
For some odd reason, they resorted to pepper spray and mace in an area that was already poorly ventilated and filled to capacity to break up the fight between two young ladies.
Obviously women are a huge threat. Obviously two security guards couldn’t control them and spraying toxins was the only answer.
The owners of E2 must believe money is more important than human lives.
If they cared about the safety and lives of the people who kept their business running, the club would have never reopened before it was safe to do so.
But they were too greedy to keep it closed. Therefore, they must be severely reprimanded.
E2 should have never been reopened and those people should have never lost their lives.
If this atrocity goes unpunished, then all those young, innocent, law-abiding citizens died in vain.
Dominique Drake for The Famuan.