ASTROWORLD tragedy Key takeaways from HPD investigation

Defender News Service

The Houston Police Department has released the findings of its investigative report into the 2021 tragedy at the Astroworld Festival, where 10 people died while attending an outdoor concert by event headliner Travis Scott.

The release of the 1,266-page report comes about one month after a Harris County grand jury declined to indict Scott, a Houston-area native, along with five others on criminal charges.

Hundreds of others were injured during the crowd crush, which prompted a slew of civil lawsuits filed against Scott and event organizers, such as Live Nation. The most notable change in the wake of the deadly concert came last year, when Houston and Harris County officials announced an agreement for large events at NRG Park.

The report sheds light on the inner-workings of HPD’s 19-month criminal investigation, detailing interviews with concert organizers, family members of victims, several witnesses and Travis Scott himself.

Here are four takeaways:

*Houston police tried to warn Live Nation HPD Officer Nathan Byrd told investigators they warned Live Nation the Astroworld venue was too large to handle, making recommendations to put reinforced fencing in certain areas of the venue. While Live Nation agreed to do so, Byrd said those barricades were nowhere to be found the day of the event.

*Scott told investigators that, at least from his perspective on stage, everything seemed relatively normal in the crowd.

In reality, investigators determined that the crowd was already dangerously compacted hours before Scott took to the stage. As his show began, this compaction only got worse.

*Security contractor Reece Wheeler messaged festival security director, Shawna Boardman, that “stage right of main [was] getting crushed” and that he had already pulled “tons” of unconscious concertgoers out of the crowd and someone “was going to end up dead.”

According to Scott, the severity of the situation wasn’t communicated to him while he was on stage. Towards the latter half of the concert, Scott said he was instructed to end the show early, but was given no indication that there was an emergency.

*Scott did not learn how bad the situation was until he arrived home later that night.

Scott said he learned that people had died from an early morning HPD press conference discussing the incident.