Audio recordings of police communications from the night of the Astroworld Festival disaster reveal that officers on the scene called for the concert to stop because people were being trampled in the crowd, but Travis Scott carried on with his performance.
A crowd surge at the sold-out festival of 50,000 people on November 5 left nine people dead and hundreds injured, among them a 9-year-old boy who remained in a medically induced coma.
Concertgoers have described the packed crowd growing dangerous hours before Scott appeared on stage at 9pm, and seeing people collapse while the rapper performed. Scott’s attorneys have said he did not know about the deaths and injuries until after the show.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner has placed the blame on Scott for not canceling the performance after his officers were caught on video milling about next to the stage and recording the rapper on their cellphones after a 'mass casualty event' was declared.
On Friday, lawyers for 200 victims of tragedy announced that they were filing another 90 lawsuits against the promoters of the festival.
Personal injury attorney Alex Hilliard said during a press conference that the organizers of the event did not have a plan in place, and the moment the gates at NRG Park opened at 9am on November 5, 'things were out of control.'
Another lawyer representing a further 150 alleged victims released police logs on Friday, which showed that a lieutenant requested riot gear nearly an hour before the festival got under way.
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Recordings of police radio traffic from the night of the Astroworld Festival disaster show that officers quickly became aware of the danger in the packed crowd
Police called for the concert to stop, but Travis Scott continued his performance for nearly an hour, despite the deadly crowd surge
Scott was only minutes into his hour-long set when at least one Houston officer radioed over a police channel that the main stage had been compromised by a massive crowd surge.
Recordings of police radio traffic, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, reveal how quickly law enforcement became aware of the mounting danger in the throng of concertgoers shortly after the rapper began performing.
'Looks like folks are coming out of the crowd complaining of difficulty breathing, crushing-type injuries,' one official said over the police radio around 9.21pm, according to the audio. 'Seems like the crowd is compressing on itself.'
Scott kept performing his set. The newspaper reported that officers spotted people leaving the crowd but that their voices remained calm through the first half hour.
'I’m at the medical tent,' one officer radioed in around 9.30pm. 'There’s a lot of people trampled and they’re passed out at the front stage.'
A second officer is heard on the recording saying of the unfolding crisis: 'that crowd is super thick, super dense. if you go in there, this could possibly turn into an officer rescue situation.'
Video showed police officers milling about next to the stage, and even recording Scott's performance on their cellphones
Later, another officer says: 'we’re getting multiple reports of people getting injured. We have another report of cardiac situation with CPR by the stage.'
As the crowd surged, officers at the site grew increasingly alarmed at what they were seeing, with one radioing in: 'they have to stop the show because there's people trampled... they're not breathing.'
A registered nurse who gave her name only as Sophie told CBS Mornings on Friday that she was near the stage when fell onto another concertgoer and then two other people fell on top of her.
'And at that moment I kind of just told myself: if this is the way that I go then this is the way that I go,"' she recalled. 'Thankfully, some guy helped me up.'
After getting to her feet, Sophie went used her medical training to try and help victims, but the first three people she aided were already dead. Then, she came across a festival attendee named Arturo who was still alive but had a very faint pulse.
A lawyer representing victims said medics at the venue were understaffed and lacked sufficient life-saving equipment
'I think he would have died if I didn't get there at the time that I did,' Sophie said.
Sophie recounted witnessing what she described as 'disregard for human life,' with concertgoers allegedly stealing clothing and electronics left behind by victims.
The nurse wondered how Scott, who was just 10-15 feet away from her up on the stage, could not see people begging for his help.
On Thursday, Scott’s representatives said in a statement that he was distraught and has been trying to connect with the affected families to share condolences and provide them aid.
Police Chief Finner said on Wednesday that police told organizers to pull the plug on the performance when fans in the crowd were administered CPR.
Authorities gave word around 10.03pm that the concert was in the process of shutting down, but witnesses say Scott and Drake, who took the stage toward the end of Scott’s set as a special guest, kept performing.
Finner repeatedly refused to provide timelines, saying the case was still under investigation. He said more than 500 officers were working the festival, more than double the number assigned in 2019 when the festival was last held.
But Finner said festival organizers had not provided clear records of how many private security guards were working the show, describing what they turned over as 'just not good.' It was up to Live Nation Entertainment, the show’s promoter, to secure two mosh pits in front of the stage, Finner said.
Scott’s attorneys on Wednesday pointed to an operational plan for the event that states only the festival director and executive producers have the
