My brother was once an early Diddy ‘sufferer’… the caution indicators have been there from the beginning

Dirk Swain was once on his first night time out after escaping what must had been positive dying.

The 20-year-old had simply recovered from being shot within the head after a faculty soccer sport – and in spite of everything felt in a position to include his 2d likelihood at existence.

But as he stood at the stairs of a New York gym ready to go into a star charity tournament thrown via a reasonably unknown 22-year-old song manufacturer referred to as Sean ‘Diddy‘ Combs, the expectant setting started to modify.

Minutes later, Dirk took his ultimate breaths.

He was once overwhelmed to dying throughout a stampede within the crowd at City College on December 28, 1991 – an evening intended to be stuffed with the thrill of basketball and song that become carnage.

Nine younger other people, together with, Dirk have been killed within the horrific weigh down that left 29 others injured.

The tournament, backed via the coed govt and promoted via Combs and rapper Heavy D, was once held on the Nat Holman Gym, which had a felony capability of 2,730.

But just about 5,000 other people confirmed up after tickets endured to be bought and a mythical New York City radio station inspired extra fanatics to wait, Dirk’s brother, Jason Swain, advised the Daily Mail in an unique interview. 

It was once, Swain mentioned, a crisis ready to occur. ‘They have been nonetheless promoting tickets and 98.7 KISS FM have been nonetheless sending other people there. That created an excellent larger crowd,’ he mentioned. 

‘My brother and 8 others were given into the staircase first, and, after they introduced they weren’t letting somebody else in, other people have been nonetheless outdoor with tickets.

‘They rushed during the doorways, broke them, ran down the stairs and the blameless were given overwhelmed via the gang.’

In 1998, Combs testified in one of the vital more than one wrongful dying court cases filed in opposition to him over the stampede.

He insisted that the deaths weren’t his fault and advised the courtroom that he was once even stuck up within the chaos.

Now he has been accused of dragging a girl right into a dressing room and sexually assaulting her simply mins ahead of the carnage spread out, in step with a lawsuit filed via ‘Jane Doe’ in December 2024. Combs has vehemently denied the allegations.

Swain recalled the horrors that his brother encountered as other people screamed and gasped for air whilst they have been being trampled.

During the chaos, greater than a dozen emergency calls have been made for qualified scientific team of workers to reach, and the police weren’t there to help, he mentioned.

Two pals controlled to pull his brother out of the stairwell and into the gym in a determined effort to save lots of him. It was once too past due.

‘Dirk was once the primary to be formally pronounced useless, at 7.50pm,’ Swain mentioned. ‘He died with a price tag in his pocket.’

At the time, Combs was once in his early twenties, and beginning to make a reputation for himself via selling and website hosting occasions as an intern at Uptown Records.

Swain, 50, maintains that the disgraced rapper ‘never took accountability and never once apologized’.

Combs cooperated with the legal process in the aftermath and was never criminally charged.

He expressed regret for the tragic events that unfolded and insisted his actions were in good faith. 

In a 1998 statement he said: ‘City College is something I deal with every day of my life. 

‘But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day.’

Now, as Combs faces the possibility of life behind bars if convicted in his sweeping racketeering and sex-trafficking trial, Swain believes that justice might be about to catch up with the music mogul.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Back in 1991, Swain was a high school senior with plans to join Dirk, who was two years older, at Hampton University in Virginia. 

The brothers had agreed to share an apartment and go through college life together.

‘He was my only sibling,’ Swain mentioned. ‘After that night, a part of me died.

‘The first couple of years, I was in bad shape. I didn’t understand. I was positively obsessed. How did my brother go to a game and die? It didn’t make sense.’

The Swain Brothers: Jason (pictured left) said that a part of him died, too, the night Dirk was crushed to death. December will mark 34 years since the horrific incident

Dirk’s dying was once particularly heartbreaking as a result of he had narrowly survived a prior tragedy. Just 3 months previous, he were shot within the head on his school campus however controlled to cheat dying.

Swain mentioned his brother were protective a girl at a fraternity birthday party when somebody opened hearth.

‘My brother was once convalescing and it was once his first time going out,’ he mentioned, of Dirk’s presence on the basketball tournament.

It was once the freshest price tag in Harlem. Everyone knew about it and sought after to head. Combs was once even giving out tickets via hand.

‘We felt like we were given Dirk again as a result of he may have kicked the bucket in Virginia – and he comes again to New York and will get that price tag and will get overwhelmed utterly within the crowd.’

Swain mentioned their father, a social employee, coped along with his son’s loss via now not speaking about it whilst their mom, a former finance govt, was once extra forgiving.

‘My mom would say, “Jason, [Diddy] didn’t get up that day and say, ‘I’m going to kill 9 other people.’ So simply get off of that,’ he recalled.

‘My mom was once within the deposition with him. He cried on my mom’s shoulder however he by no means at one time mentioned he was once sorry for the rest.’

Shocking video photos from the sport presentations crowds of fanatics jammed into the gym at City College New York

This harrowing symbol of Dirk’s buddy laying on his frame is featured within the documentary 

Victims are observed mendacity at the ground, with pals desperately looking to save them 

Dirk is pictured in a circle of relatives photograph. He died along with his entire existence forward of him

The 8 different sufferers of the City College stampede have been: Jabaal Rainey, 15; Leonard Nelson, 17; Laytesha Heard, 19; Sonya Williams, 20; Yul Dargan, 24; Charise Ann Noel, 26; Darren Brown, 28; and Dawn McCaine, 20.

In 2011, Swain, a filmmaker, produced a documentary in regards to the tragedy referred to as ‘No Way Out (the Heavy D – Diddy) City College Stampede’, which he has just lately up to date.

The movie opens with a harrowing symbol of his brother mendacity at the gym ground lined with a white sheet. One of his early life pals is observed resting his head on Dirk’s chest in frozen disbelief.

‘He vanished after that night time,’ Swain mentioned. ‘We never spoke again.’

Another friend, who survived the deadly crowd crush, kept silent for years until ‘he started working at Bad Boy Records’ – the label founded by Combs.

Swain said that his own trauma over Dirk’s death had been compounded by fury that more wasn’t completed afterwards. Within a couple of months, he mentioned, no person ever mentioned it once more.

‘They tucked it under the rug. The people who supposedly supported us at the time completely disappeared, like [the civil rights activist] Al Sharpton and [the hip-hop artist] Doug E. Fresh.

‘Some of the people that would come to the memorial and talk to us and were so positive became employees of Sean Combs and that was it. They blamed the kids and said they scapegoated him,’ he said.

Furthermore, Swain didn’t discover that Combs was accused of sexual assault that night until only recently.

‘I had no knowledge of that,’ he mentioned in regards to the allegation.

‘If those claims are true, it would be deeply disturbing.’ 

Jason Swain was once simplest 17 and a senior in highschool when his older brother Dirk was once killed 

Combs has denied the alleged attack and has filed a movement to disregard the case. The lawsuit has been stayed in courtroom and no proof has been introduced. 

‘Mr. Combs vehemently denies the allegations,’ a spokesman for his felony staff advised the Daily Mail. 

‘He and his felony staff have complete self assurance within the details and the integrity of the judicial procedure, they usually sit up for clearing his identify.’

Swain additionally puzzled whether or not such an alleged dressing-room come upon, if true, supposed that Combs’s center of attention would had been directed clear of the protection and the swell of the gang.

The surviving households of the sufferers seemed for somebody responsible and in the end sued Combs, Heavy D and others. The damages demanded from more than one court cases reached round $500 million.

Combs settled for his alleged section in 8 of the 9 wrongful dying fits. Many of them have been concluded in secret however a document from Fortune Magazine means that he paid a complete of $600,000 in damages. 

Swain mentioned that Combs settled briefly, giving his circle of relatives $40,000.

‘There were ten defendants and that was his portion based on the monetary value of a college student,’ he mentioned. ‘Which was crazy.

Dirk Swain (in the red) and his brother Jason (bottom right kneeling down) would play basketball for hours and were looking forward to attending the same college before his excruciating death

‘He was told what he owed and he paid – so he wasn’t slow with that. My mother said it came the next day after there was a judgement, but Heavy D took forever.’

The event had been billed as a charity fundraiser for AIDS research.

‘He supposedly raised about $60,000,’ Swain said. ‘In 1991, AIDS was killing a lot of people like the pandemic recently. I feel like he used that and oversold the concert. It was just bad business.’

Combs (pictured front center) with members of the R&B group Jodeci, Mr. Cee and Andrew Harrell at the Def Jam Records Christmas party in December 1991 

In pictures shot at Diddy’s penultimate party in 2008, scantily clad, half-naked girls cavort in the swimming pool

When the stampede happened, Combs was dating Misa Hylton, the mother of his first child, Justin Dior Combs, who was born in 1993.

Misa attended the event with her best friend Sonya Williams, who was one of the nine victims crushed to death.

One of the details that still haunts Swain to this day is the boot mark left on Sonya’s face.

‘It was so horrific, the family had to do a closed casket,’ he mentioned.

Though they didn’t commute in the similar circles the Swain brothers crossed paths with the hip hop artist.

Swain went to Mount Saint Michael Academy, the similar college as Combs who was once a couple of years older, and Combs’s sister Keisha and Dirk went to Spellman High School within the Bronx.

Keisha and Dirk have been classmates and graduated in combination however Swain was once now not positive in the event that they have been pals.  

He recalled as soon as chatting with Diddy about an ‘E! True Hollywood’ clip he was once in. ‘He advised me ‘Nah, not anything was once overbooked.’ 

Swain added: ‘I will be able to’t get round appearing no responsibility in 1991 that was once one thing that also came about to start with of your profession.’

December shall be 34 years because the horrific night time. ‘I’m now not indignant to any extent further however, I’ve to mention, that was once a tricky transition to maturity. I used to be extraordinarily shut with my brother and someday he didn’t come house,’ he mentioned. 

‘I’d have revered Diddy extra if he would have mentioned he was once sorry. He’s nearly untouchable. He would get in bother and not anything would occur. He is secure always and he lies.

‘I imagine he’s in spite of everything getting what he merits,’ he mentioned. ‘I imagine very a lot in karma.’

Dirk’s identify is spelled out in a middle that was once etched into the pavement at Parkchester Park within the Bronx the place the Swain brothers spent numerous time in combination. They lived in an rental close by till 2008 when their father kicked the bucket

In 2009, Swain and his oldsters based The Dirk Swain Foundation, a nonprofit group created to honor Dirk’s reminiscence and the ones of the 8 different sufferers of the City College stampede.

The basis serves as a platform to stay their tales alive whilst running to uplift the group as a method of turning their devastating loss into a good. 

It makes a speciality of instructing and empowering younger other people elderly 13 to 18 in regards to the types of stressors that may end up in bodily, emotional or psychological hurt.

‘It was once a option to memorialize my brother and the others,’ Swain mentioned. ‘We hold a memorial at City College every year. This was about making sure their names are not forgotten.’

In 2020, he revised Part 1 of the documentary ‘No Way Out (the Heavy D – Diddy) City College Stampede’ when he got here again to New York from Los Angeles to deal with his mom who has since kicked the bucket. 

He mentioned she were born on Mother’s Day and described her as ‘an angel’.

‘That isolation pushed me to create again. She [my mother] told me: “Don’t prevent till it’s completed”,’ he mentioned. ‘The industry wasn’t curious about a tale about Combs – now they’re however most commonly for the attacks. Some people are fascinated with honoring the 9 who died.

‘I have dedicated my life to this,’ he mentioned. ‘And that drive from the 90s is back.’

Part 2 of the documentary is in building however Swain mentioned he was once looking to get a manufacturing corporate to spouse with him. 

He may be running on a e-book.