Authorities Blame Organizer for Deadly Love Parade

The organizer's security officials failed to properly control the entrance area where the victims were crushed, according to North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger and the state's chief police controller Dieter Wehe.

"Security did not fulfill its duty," Wehe said while presenting the key findings of a preliminary police investigation at a news conference.

It was unclear if 150 staffers who were supposed to be posted at the entrance area were really present, Wehe said, adding: "But it is a fact that the existing security detail was insufficient."

When the organizers couldn't manage to control the flow of tens of thousands pouring into the event area in Duisburg, they eventually turned to the police for help, he said.

Interior Minister Jaeger said the organizer, Rainer Schaller, failed to stop the flow of people into the tunnel when the situation was already tense at the entrance to the festival grounds.

"The organizer did not fulfill the requirements of his security concept," Jaeger told journalists.

Schaller, for his part, has fought back against the accusations of wrongdoing, noting that his security concept received official city approval. "Without the official stamp of approval we never would have let the Love Parade take place," he was quoted as saying in the Bild daily on Wednesday.