Graphic videos have emerged of the Travis Scott concert in Houston, Texas, in which a stampede helped lead to the deaths of at least eight people. You can watch some of the videos throughout this article, but be aware that they are graphic and disturbing.
The eight victims who died at the festival have been identified.
“Last night was tragic on many different levels, and this is a very, very active investigation. We will probably be at it for quite some time to determine what exactly happened,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a news conference of the tragedy at AstroWorld Fest on November 5, 2021.
“Based on our latest information, eight people are reported dead from the event last night,” he said in the November 6 news conference, indicating he could not remember anything “of this magnitude” taking place before in Houston.
Houston Police Department Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite told ABC13: “Once we started having the mass casualty incident, they were starting CPR on several people, and it happened all at once. It seemed like it happened over the course of just a few minutes. Suddenly, we had several people down on the ground experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode.”
Here’s what you need to know:
Videos Raised Concerns About Scott’s Reaction
One video shows Scott continuing to sing as a concertgoer appears to be passed through the crowd unconscious. Turner said authorities were talking with “Travis Scott’s people,” witnesses and people hospitalized to get a better picture of “what went wrong … what were the missteps.”
He said they would be looking at “as much of the video as possible,” in addition to security plans.
The mayor said of the victims: “In terms of their ages one is 14, one is 16, two are 21 years of age, two are 23, one is 27 and one remains unknown at this time. So a total of eight that are reported dead. Six of the eight family members have been notified, and we know at least one is outside Houston Harris County.”
Turner added: “Last night, 25 were transported to the hospital. Thirteen are still hospitalized, including five that are under the age of 18. No one is reported missing. Four of the 25 have been discharged from the hospital.”
There were 528 Houston police officers providing security and 755 people representing private security from Live Nation, Turner said.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” Turner said. He cautioned people to not “buy into the rumors” on social media.
“It was like hell,” said Nick Johnson, 17, to The New York Times. “Everybody was just in the back, trying to rush to the front.”
“People were literally grabbing and pinching at my body trying to get up from the ground,” Chris Leigh, 23, told The Times. “I was fighting for my life; there was no way out.”
“Young people with bright futures — those were the people who were at the event,” said Lina Hidalgo, the Harris County executive.
She said her team was trying to “untangle as much as we can about what might have led to this.”
A Security Guard Was ‘Pricked’
Police Chief Troy Finner said a security officer was pricked in the neck while restraining a concertgoer and was revived with Narcan. “The medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if somebody was trying to inject,” he said in the news conference.
According to Hidalgo, “Perhaps the plans were inadequate, perhaps the plans were good but they weren’t followed, perhaps it was something else entirely.”
She said that Live Nation and AstroWorld put together a security and site plan with the City of Houston agencies and Harris County.
According to The New York Times, Scott “continued playing through his set of music, urging the crowd on at times, at other times pausing to acknowledge that something appeared to be wrong.” Live Nation stopped the concert early but it was 40 minutes after the incident started, according to The Times.
In the news conference, Finner defended the decision not to suddenly shut down the concert, saying, “You cannot just close when you got 50,000 and over 50,000 individuals. We have to worry about rioting, riots, when you have a group that’s that young.”
“They could have had over 200,000 people in this venue; this venue was limited to 50,000,” said the Houston fire chief, Samuel Peña, at the news conference.
“We had more security over there than we had at the World Series games,” Turner said.
The Times reported that the most common cause of death in such situations is compressive asphyxia, which means people’s airways are restricted by the crowd.
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Travis Scott Concert Videos: Graphic Scenes Emerge After Deaths