It’s been practically two years since 10 folks died throughout a crowd surge at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival, and the Houston Chronicle is reporting (through Variety) {that a} grand jury has determined that he is not going to face felony costs. That being stated, he nonetheless faces numerous civil claims accusing him of negligence that led to wrongful deaths and numerous accidents. One civil swimsuit, filed on behalf of 282 plaintiffs, was searching for $2 billion from Scott, fellow performer Drake, organizer Live Nation, and sponsor Apple. Late final yr, we heard that the households of two victims had settled their fits—with the entire particulars remaining undisclosed.
The preliminary incident occurred in October of 2021 at Scott’s Astroworld in Houston, when a surge within the crowd of fifty,000 attendees precipitated a panic. Three minors died, together with nine-year-old Ezra Blount, who was sitting on his father’s shoulders when the group surged, inflicting his father to go out and fall to the bottom. In the wake of the tragedy, stories got here out suggesting that employees at Astroworld had been not adequately ready for this type of state of affairs, to the purpose {that a} coaching doc didn’t have a particular plan in place for precisely the sort of stampede that occurred on the pageant.
The doc additionally reportedly defined that solely the pageant’s director and govt producer had the authority to finish it early, which can be method that live performance continued even after safety knew that folks within the crowd had died, although Houston’s police chief claimed on the time that ending early would’ve simply made issues worse. Later, although it didn’t go over nicely with everybody, Scott—by means of this lawyer—supplied to pay for the funerals of everybody who died at Astroworld. Lawyers concerned argued that the supply was extra about “making an attempt to much less the general public outcry” than regret.
