Astroworld security guard clears up story, says he wasn't injected with drugs: LIVE UPDATES
An Astroworld security guard who had reportedly been pricked in the neck at the event has told authorities that he was not in fact pricked, but but struck and fell unconscious.
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Attorney Edwin F. McPherson of McPherson LLP said on behalf of Travis Scott:
“There has been multiple finger-pointing, much of which has been by city officials, who have sent inconsistent messages and have backtracked from original statements. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner was quoted in the New York Times as 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.' Yet, just a short time later, Chief Finner states the responsibility to stop the show falls on Travis.
It was reported that the Operations Plan designated that only the festival director and executive producers have authority to stop the show, neither of which is part of Travis’s crew.
This also runs afoul of HPD’s own previous actions when it shut down the power and sound at this very festival when the performance ran over 5 minutes back in 2019.
Investigations should start proceeding over finger-pointing so that together, we can identify exactly what transpired and how we can prevent anything like this from happening again.”
Eight people died when the crowd surged at Travis Scott's Astroworld performance in Houston. Two more remain in critical condition.
A security guard as Astroworld cleared up his story of events from the night after authorities previously implied he may have been injected with drugs.
During a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said that they had located the security guard they previously addressed, and that he explained that he was struck and fell unconscious.
He awoke in a security tent and clarified when speaking with law enforcement that he was not injected with drugs.
During a previous press conference, Finner said they'd received a report that the guard felt that he was pricked in the neck before falling unconscious and it was reported that medical professionals found markings on his neck consistent with such an event.
Finner also addressed a question about the roughly 40-minute time lapse between the evening's first injury reports and the end of rapper Travis Scott's performance, explaining that "the ultimate decision to end the show is up to production and the entertainer."
"We're going to hold people accountable. the families, we owe that to them. We owe it to the city. We owe it to our nation and we need to learn lessons from this," he added. "Those who need to be held accountable, will be held accountable."
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Some Instagram posts in which Travis Scott appears to glorify injuries and unsafe conditions at his shows have resurfaced in light of the deadly Astroworld Festival incident in Houston, Tx.
The rapper recently removed several Instagram posts following a TMZ report that highlighted photos of people injured or passed out at his concerts along with captions in which he praised them and others for the rowdiness of his concerts.
The outlet reports that some of the photos included captions like "SHE BROKE HER HAND AND SHE DOESN'T GIVE A F***!!!" and "IT'S NOT A SHOW UNTIL SOMEONE PASS OUT."
All of these do not age well given that he is currently being criticized and even sued for continuing on with his show Friday, even as first responders tried to deal with hundreds of injuries and eight deaths.
Scott has previously been in legal trouble in 2015 and 2017 for allegedly inciting his crowd. The 2019 Astroworld Festival saw three people sent to the hospital after being trampled in a stampede of people trying to get into the same venue.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner spoke out about the tragedy that took place at the 2021 Astroworld Festival, (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner spoke out about the Astroworld Festival tragedy that took place in the city last week during a City Council meeting on Wednesday.
"First and foremost, let's lift these families up," Turner began. "That's priority number one. To lift these families up, to provide them with whatever encouragement that we can provide them, to be very respectful of their space and their wishes because that's important. I am sure they are still trying to process things in their own minds."
Turner went on to note that he is determined to understand what happened at the event and will provide answers to all the questions that he feels the families of the victims deserve.
"And now is [the time] to drill down, to get a full understanding of what took place, how did it happen, that is a question that remains on all of our minds. How did this happen? Where were the missteps? Where were the failures? Where were the gaps? And we owe it to the family members, all of those who attended, and quite frankly, to the city as a whole," he said.
He concluded: "From the beginning to the end this whole event will be looked at very, very carefully. We're not going to be able to answer everybody's questions right now because you want to be careful in any premature conclusions. But I simply want to provide the assurance especially to the families and people there those questions will be answered and they will be laid bare for people to see."
A 22-year-old college senior has not shown any brain activity since being injured at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival performance.
Bharti Shahani, a student at Texas A&M University, was one of the hundreds injured at last week’s concert, which also claimed the lives of eight people. Her family has stated that it is figuring out next steps after doctors told them she has exhibited no brain activity since being brought to the ER.
Speaking to ABC13, the family laid out the horrific chain of events that put Bharti in peril. She and her sister, Namrata, and their cousin, Mohit Bellani, attended the concert together but lost each other in the crowd surge that led to injuries and turned the situation deadly.
"Once one person fell, people started toppling like dominos. It was like a sinkhole. People were falling on top of each other," Bellani told the outlet. "There were like layers of bodies on the ground, like two people thick. We were fighting to come up to the top and breathe to stay alive."
Both girls lost their phones and were unable to locate their loved one until she surfaced in the Emergency Room. Bhati’s parents reportedly went to NRG Park, the place where the concert took place to see if they could find her. They then went to multiple hospitals before finally finding their daughter.
"They took us to her room, and she was bleeding and on a ventilator. Me and my wife were too shocked. We can't even stand in there," her father, Sunny Shahani, said.
Her injuries are extensive and Sunny says doctors hold very little hope of recovery.
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Travis Scott was unaware of the "severity" of the Astroworld tragedy when he attended an after-party event on Friday night.
During the rapper's performance in Houston at the Astroworld music festival, the crowd reportedly surged, ultimately resulting in the death of eight attendees from ages 14-27.
After the concert, rapper Drake, who also performed at Astroworld, reportedly hosted an after party at a Dave & Buster's, which Scott, 29, attended after chaos broke out during his show.
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