{"id":31328,"date":"2021-12-16T22:59:55","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T04:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/?p=31328"},"modified":"2021-12-16T22:59:55","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T04:59:55","slug":"astroworld-festival-leaves-10-dead-what-really-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/2021\/12\/16\/astroworld-festival-leaves-10-dead-what-really-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"Astroworld Festival Leaves 10 Dead: What Really Happened"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the evening of November 5, nine people, ages ranging 14 to 27, died during the <\/span>chaotic Astroworld music festival<\/span><\/a> in Houston. <\/span><\/p>\n

There was a crowd of over 50,000 people coming to see one of the highest-paid rappers in the music industry, Travis Scott. <\/span>When the performance began, there was a <\/span>stampede of people<\/span><\/a> rushing towards the front of the stage, pushing everyone forward. Some collapsed and were continuously stepped on, leaving hundreds injured. <\/span>It was described as \u201chell\u201d by many individuals who attended the concert. <\/span><\/p>\n

Nine-year-old Ezra Blount, who was a huge fan of Travis Scott, <\/span>suffered several injuries<\/span><\/a> because he was crushed and trampled over. <\/span>His father was knocked unconscious and when he woke up, his son was missing. <\/span>\u201cI began to be crushed until I couldn\u2019t breathe. And I woke up and my son was gone,\u201d he explained in a <\/span>GoFundMe<\/span><\/a> fundraiser. <\/span>He found Ezra at a local hospital, discovering that his son had sustained <\/span>brain, kidney, and liver injuries and was in an induced coma.<\/span><\/a> <\/span>Due to these complications, Ezra passed away days later, making him the youngest casualty of this horrific disaster and bringing the death toll up to 10.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fire department logs show issues hours before Scott\u2019s performance<\/b><\/p>\n

Just after the 9:00 a.m. start of the festival, spectators had already broken past the main gate, according to the <\/span>handwritten logs<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Shortly before 5:00 p.m., the fire department reported <\/span>\u201cdangerous crowd conditions\u201d<\/span><\/a> at one stage. <\/span><\/p>\n

If there were already dangerous crowd conditions a full four hours before Scott was to take the stage, somebody should have been notified. Concert management, Scott\u2019s crew, police officials, or Scott himself even could have been notified if it would have been beneficial. <\/span><\/p>\n

Eight minutes before Scott took the stage at 9:00 p.m., <\/span>more than 260 people<\/span><\/a> had already been treated, though the logs hadn\u2019t specified the type of treatment. <\/span><\/p>\n

One unknown officer reported that the main stage had been compromised around 9:11 p.m., citing <\/span>emergency radio chatter<\/span><\/a>. The chatter included \u201creports of breached barricades, people jumping gates, and breathing and cardiac problems\u201d and continued until about 10:15 p.m. <\/span>\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot we can do. Stand by for now. We\u2019ll have to wait, but the concert management will let us know,\u201d an official told the security team. <\/span><\/p>\n

It seems as though the officers had been wandering in the dark. <\/span><\/p>\n

The head of security should have been in charge of this event if something like this happened, and that should have been clearly stated in any safety plans. Instead, concert management had higher authority over police officers, which is simply bizarre. <\/span><\/p>\n

Less than half an hour into Scott’s performance, the <\/span>logs state<\/span><\/a>, \u201cThis is when it all got real.\u201d <\/span>At 9:33 p.m. police reported \u201cmultiple people trampled, passed out at front of stage.\u201d A few minutes later, an officer reported <\/span>five different 911<\/span><\/a> calls about \u201cunconscious persons in crowd [with] report of possible CPR.\u201d <\/span>The <\/span>logs report a Level One MCI<\/span><\/a> — a mass casualty incident — at 9:52 p.m. From 10:00 p.m to 11:40 p.m. the logs show that 17 people were taken to hospitals, including at least <\/span>six people who had gone into cardiac arrest<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s lawyer claimed Scott didn\u2019t know what was happening<\/b><\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the concert, concertgoers have filed at least 110 lawsuits thus far. Scott\u2019s being sued for a <\/span>total of $2.75 billion<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Scott\u2019s lawyer, <\/span>Edwin F. McPherson<\/span><\/a> appeared on <\/span>\u201cGood Morning America\u201d<\/span><\/a> on Nov. 12 to make a statement on behalf of Scott. <\/span>He had explained that Scott wasn\u2019t aware of the full scale of what was happening and that the artist nor his crew were never informed that officials had declared the concert a mass casualty event. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTravis didn\u2019t really understand the full effect of everything until the next morning. Truly, he did not know what was going on.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

While McPherson might have a genuine argument, it seems like he\u2019s just throwing a flimsy excuse together to try and protect Scott. <\/span>McPherson urged the public to wait for the police to \u201cfinish their investigation\u201d before we \u201cstart pointing fingers at anyone.\u201d <\/span>In response, <\/span>Benjamin Crump<\/span><\/a>, a famed civil rights attorney, also <\/span>made a statement<\/span><\/a> on behalf of his client, Noah Gutierrez. <\/span>Gutierrez described a scene of \u201cchaos and desperation,\u201d Crump explained in his statement. <\/span>\u201cWe are hearing horrific accounts of the terror and helplessness people experienced. The horror of a crushing crowd and the awful trauma of watching people die while trying to save them.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Thomas J. Henry, Kristian Paredes\u2019s attorney, put full blame on Scott for what happened <\/span>in a news release<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>\u201cThere is every indication that the performers, organizers, and venue were not only aware of the hectic crowd but also that injuries and potential deaths may have occurred,\u201d Henry said. <\/span>McPherson explained that Scott \u201ccan\u2019t hear anything, he can\u2019t see anything\u201d because of the lights in his face and the music in his in-ear. <\/span><\/p>\n

Scott v. Social Media<\/b><\/p>\n

There have also been several disputes between the public and Scott about his initiative during the concert. <\/span>On social media platforms such as TikTok, there have been videos of people chanting, <\/span>\u201cStop the show\u201d<\/span><\/a> while filming Travis Scott asking the crowd to \u201cmake some noise.\u201d <\/span>According to the <\/span>Houston police<\/span><\/a>, Scott continued the concert for over forty minutes after the casualties occurred. <\/span><\/p>\n

On <\/span>Scott\u2019s Instagram story<\/span><\/a>, he claimed that he was devastated and didn\u2019t know about the deaths until after the concert. <\/span>Creators on TikTok have been posting about his apology on Instagram using it as a trend to imitate a fake apology. <\/span>Many are also comparing him to other singers like Ariana Grande after McPherson\u2019s obvious reach to protect Scott. <\/span><\/p>\n

In 2017, a suicide bomber <\/span>detonated a bomb<\/span><\/a> outside the arena Ariana Grande performed at moments before, killing 22 bystanders and injuring over a hundred. <\/span>Grande paid for all 22 funerals, visited all the injured individuals, held a concert to raise money for the victims and their families for a calamity she had no control over. <\/span><\/p>\n

Scott, however, rubbed his head on Instagram over a tragedy he could\u2019ve easily prevented. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the evening of November 5, nine people, ages ranging 14 to 27, died during the chaotic Astroworld music festival in Houston.  There was a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":31329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3722,3751,3750,3721],"coauthors":[3428,3694],"class_list":["post-31328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","tag-astroworld","tag-music-festival","tag-tragedy","tag-travis-scott"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31328"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31790,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31328\/revisions\/31790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31328"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=31328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}