Police investigating nightclub stampede find pepper spray can

Italian police investigating a deadly disco stampede have found a pepper spray can and were questioning dozens of witnesses yesterday following accounts by concert-goers that a teenage boy had sprayed an irritating substance, triggering the rush by the crowd to flee.

The stampede happened about 1am on Saturday in a crowd awaiting a rapper’s performance in the Lanterna Azzurra (Blue Lantern) disco in Corinaldo, a small town in the Marche region of east-central Italy, the Carabiniere paramilitary police commander of Ancona province, Colonel Cristian Carrozza, said.

He also declined to confirm Italian media reports that a 16-year-old boy had been identified as the sprayer and would be questioned by juvenile court officials.

Five teenagers, all juveniles, and a woman who had accompanied her 11-year-old daughter to the concert, died in the crush of fleeing concert-goers who toppled over a railing on top of a cement ramp outside an exit. The railing gave way, sending young people tumbling over it and landing on top of each other in the area below the ramp, about 1.5 metres below.

On Saturday, prosecutors and Italy’s premier and interior minister said that nearly 1,400 tickets had been sold, while the disco could safely hold only 870 people, with the capacity of the room of the concert itself set at about 460.

Yesterday, Col Carrozza said that a count of ticket stubs indicated that about 600 tickets were used for entry. It was unclear if others might have got in without having tickets checked by disco personnel.

One of the DJS, Marco Cecchini, told reporters he was sure that more than just one room of the disco was open, in addition to the one with the 460-person capacity.

“I’ve done 40-50 evenings in that place, and, sincerely, there weren’t so many people. I’d estimate maybe 800-900 people, but all the rooms were open,” he said.

Several parents whose children had gone to the concert on Saturday brought police mobile phones to show videos of the disco’s premises in case the visuals could help in the investigation, the news agency ANSA said. Many parents and patrons have said the disco was jam-packed.

Col Carrozza said that on Saturday police had taken accounts from more than 80 people, and many more concert-goers were being questioned yesterday.

Seven of the more than 50 people injured in the stampede remained in critical condition yesterday while the remaining patients were either already discharged or about to be discharged after their condition improved, doctors said.