Eight people were killed and more than two dozen were injured when the crowd surged to the stage at Astroworld, including a 9-year-old boy who's in a medically induced coma.
The lawsuits are piling up in the wake of a deadly concert in Houston. Rapper Travis Scott and promoter Live Nation are among those named in at least 18 lawsuits stemming from the incident.
Eight people were killed and more than two dozen were injured, including a 9-year-old boy who's in a medically induced coma, when the crowd surged to the stage at Astroworld.
Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena is pointing a finger at Scott for not stopping the show.
“He can certainly pause that performance, turn on the lights and say, ‘Hey, we're not going to continue until this thing is resolved,’” Pena said.
But crowd-safety expert Paul Wertheimer says the authorities should have closed the show down.
“The fire marshal or the police have a duty to the community and to the visitors who come into that community to look after their safety and welfare. It’s their job. The buck stops there,” Wertheimer told Inside Edition.
Videos showing Adele and other performers stopping their concerts when they saw problems in the crowd are being widely circulated on social media.
But Scott has a long record of revving up his fans.
When a fan tried to steal Scott’s sneakers at a 2015 concert while he was crowd-surfing, he told the crowd to “f*** him up,” video shows.
At a concert in New York City in 2017, Scott encouraged one fan to drop two stories off a balcony. That fan made it, but another fan at the same concert, 27-year-old Kyle Green fell and was paralyzed.
New video shows harrowing scenes at the center of the deadly crush in Houston. Someone tries to call 911, and you can see the chaos as fans are trampled.
Jared Kuker survived the terrifying crush.
“I was able to get up and the person underneath me was the one on the bottom of the pile and they weren’t fighting, so I was very concerned that they were even alive anymore,” Kuker said.
Ezra Blount, 9, is in a coma after being trampled. He was sitting on his father’s shoulders during the concert. Blount’s grandfather spoke to KTRK-TV.
“My son couldn't breathe because of all the pressure that was being applied to him. He passed out, and when he passed out, Ezra fell into the crowd. He was trampled really bad,” the grandfather said.
Former marine Lucas Naccarati gave two people CPR amid the chaos and helped several others escape.
“I was just grabbing any girl that I saw, just screaming at them, ‘Just get out of here. You cannot be here right now.’ You could see the panic in people's eyes,” Naccarati said.
Scott claims he wasn't aware of the severity of the situation while he was on stage and he and promoter Live Nation say they are working with authorities. The police chief says they didn't stop the show sooner because they were worried about rioting.
