CCNY stampede victims to be remembered 33 years later on Saturday in Harlem
NEW YORK -- Saturday marks 33 years since nine people died during a stampede at a celebrity basketball game at City College of New York.
The winter break calm across the Harlem campus on Thursday seemed very different than the scene that night in 1991, before the cheers that pierced the silence of the night turned into screams.
Here's what happened on Dec. 28, 1991
"This was the place to be," remembered Jason Swain, who was 17 when his big brother, Dirk, was home from Hampton University.
Swain did not join his brother's group that went to the student government-sponsored game that was hosted by Heavy D and lesser-known music producer Sean "Diddy" Combs.
"I had just bought some new boots, and I didn't want anyone to step on them," Swain recalled. "There were supposedly 5,000 in the gym, 800 in the staircase, and 1,000 right here."
Major stars from Run-DMC to Jodeci showed up courtside, causing the crowd outside to surge beyond the capacity of security to contain.
"They're here, saying '1, 2, 3 push!'" Swain said. "Dirk and the others were already down there."
The ensuing stampede crushed several and killed nine, including Dirk. All nine names are now enshrined on a plaque outside Nat Holman Gym.
Swain hopes to release a documentary on the CCNY 9
At the time, the up-and-coming Combs was cut from his label, but no one was ever charged with a crime. Civil lawsuits by the families against him and nine other defendants all reached out-of-court settlements.
Swain has since turned his sorrow into a mission, spending decades interviewing other family members and witnesses and curating every camera angle available to capture the event in its entirety. His efforts to release a documentary and book for a broader audience never fully developed until now, as the interest in Diddy's apparent downfall rises.
"He's never even said, 'Sorry,' or, you know, was accountable for it," Swain claimed.
Swain calls it "karma" catching up to the fallen star, who is currently being held in jail without bail until his May 2025 trial on sex trafficking charges. Combs has pleaded not guilty.
Through the Dirk Swain Foundation, painful memories of the past still fuel efforts to share the victims' stories. more than three decades later, a new crowd will gather and pay homage to the CCNY 9. The memorial happens Saturday, at 6 p.m., in the gym at the corner of 138th Street and Convent Avenue.
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