Eric Herman
The Chicago Sun-Times
Copyright 2007 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
CHICAGO — The bodies lay in a pile 6 feet high. Those still alive screamed for help. Ebony Reed, who was among them, saw a man with a twisted body and popped-out eyes, she said. She clutched the hand of her friend Danielle Greene, who was speaking incoherently, her head slumped against the wall. Then Greene stopped speaking altogether.
The details of the E2 nightclub stampede filled the courtroom of Judge Dennis Porter at the Cook County Criminal Courts building last month. Club managers Calvin Hollins Jr. and Calvin Hollins III and promoter Marco Flores are on trial for allegedly running the club in an unsafe manner on Feb. 17, 2003, resulting in the deaths of 21 people. The penalties, if the men are convicted, range from probation to 10 years in prison.
“Twenty-one people died on that stairwell that night — under their friends,” Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Egan said. “All completely unnecessary deaths, if the people responsible for the E2 nightclub had undertaken those responsibilities.”
‘MACE THEIR ASS’
Few cases straddle the line between tort and criminal law like the E2 case. Tort law — better known as personal injury — makes people pay for their carelessness. A tractor driver loses control on an expressway, for example, killing a little girl and injuring members of her family. The family sues and wins $10.4 million.
The Hollinses and Flores — along with many others — have been hit with dozens of lawsuits. A year ago, Hollins Jr. and partner Dwain Kyles settled with 116 plaintiffs for $1.5 million. Hollins Jr. and Kyles have declared bankruptcy. But in September 2003, Cook County prosecutors upped the ante, charging them and Kyles with involuntary manslaughter. Their lawyers say the case does not belong in criminal court.
Criminal law plays for higher stakes than personal injury. Because defendants face the loss of their freedom, the law makes it harder to prove a criminal charge.
Reed wept as she recalled the events of that night — how a fight on the dance floor prompted the DJ to call for security to “Mace their ass,” how patrons choked on the pepper spray and ran for the front exit, how she fell and broke her arm, how she watched her friend die. In the gallery sat grief-stricken family members.
But emotion is not likely to decide the case. For one thing, the three defendants opted for a bench trial. That means Judge Porter, not a jury, will decide their fate. Porter is known in the Criminal Courts Building as a “good law judge” — one who studies the law and makes his rulings based on what he thinks it says, not on popular sentiment. Porter has no problem going his own way, many say.
NOT ENOUGH EXITS?
Illinois law defines involuntary manslaughter as an unintentional killing brought about by reckless acts “likely to cause death or great bodily harm.” Say, two boys are playing with a gun and the gun goes off, killing one of them. Or, during an argument, a man points a gun at his pregnant girlfriend and it goes off, killing her and the unborn baby. Both cases brought convictions for involuntary manslaughter.
Involuntary manslaughter has been used in Illinois to convict a woman who passed her cocaine addiction on to her unborn baby when the child, untreated, died a day after it was born. Other convictions include a nanny who shook a baby violently and repeatedly, and two men who set a garbage can on fire. The fire spread to a nearby house, where a baby died in the ensuing blaze.
Did the Hollinses and Flores do the equivalent of waving a loaded gun or setting a garbage can on fire? Prosecutors say they did. Fights were a regular occurrence at E2. The security guards had pepper spray. They should have known it was only a matter of time, prosecutors argue.
They have called engineers who said the club did not have enough exits. According to bouncers, two of the three exits were usually locked to keep people from getting in without paying. Neither exit met safety standards, the engineers said, so E2 could safely hold 240 people.
But motivated by greed, the defendants allowed 1,152 patrons in that night, prosecutors allege. The stampede could have been avoided, Egan said, if the defendants “had only stopped the influx of people.”
‘MASS STAMPEDE’
To prove recklessness — the essential part of their case — prosecutors must show the Hollinses and Flores consciously disregarded a known risk. In court papers filed Wednesday, Hollins Jr.'s lawyer Tom Breen called the incident “a mass stampede that no force could predict or prevent.” During testimony, Breen noted the club had been operating, under various names, for 18 years. Fights might have happened, but no more than at other clubs. In fact, Breen argued, the owners employed a well-trained security team that had a policy of keeping gang-bangers out.
In short, the stampede was a freak occurrence no owner could have foreseen.
Raul Villalobos, the lawyer for Flores, argues his client did not control the guards or who came into the club. “Flores could not have predicted, prevented or controlled human instinct,” Villalobos wrote in papers filed Wednesday.
The prosecution has finished putting on its case. And Wednesday, the three defendants asked Porter for a directed verdict -- a finding of not guilty before the defense puts on a case. Porter will hear arguments Feb. 22. Kyles will be tried separately at a later date.
In the meantime, Porter will ponder whether the E2 stampede was a horrible accident — or a crime.