Travis Scott will not face criminal charges in relation to the 2021 Astroworld concert tragedy that resulted in the deaths of 10 attendees and many more injuries.
A Texas grand jury declined to indict the rapper along with five other individuals over the NRG Park festival concert deaths, which occurred as a result of crowd movement and panic and crushed or injured a number of the Nov. 5 event’s estimated 50,000 attendees. “In this instance, the grand jury of 228th District Court of Harris County found that no crime did occur, that no single individual was criminally responsible,” said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg during a Thursday afternoon press conference.
Scott’s attorney Kent Schaffer on Thursday issued this statement: “Today’s decision by the Harris County District Attorney confirms what we have known all along — that Travis Scott is not responsible for the AstroWorld tragedy. This is consistent with investigative reporting by numerous media outlets and federal and state government reports that have squarely placed the onus for event safety crises on organizers, operators and contractors — not performers. While waiting patiently for the District Attorney’s decision to not file charges, Travis Scott has been inaccurately and wrongly singled out, despite stopping the show three separate times and being unaware of the events as they were unfolding. Now that this chapter is closed, we hope for the government efforts to focus on what is most important — stopping future heartbreaking tragedies like AstroWorld from ever occurring again.”
The decision comes 18 months after local authorities responded to and began investigating the deadly incident. The Houston Police Department concluded its criminal investigation into the tragedy last week before presenting it to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and, eventually, the grand jury.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner and DA Ogg were among those who spoke during a press conference about the decision to not indict Scott; festival manager Brent Silverstein; senior director of global security operations for Live Nation John Janelle; Shawna Boardman and Seyth Boardman from the crowd management company Contemporary Services Corporation; and Emily Ockenden with production company BWG.
The deaths of those 10 individuals during the concert were declared by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science to be caused by compression asphyxia and were ruled an accident. Ogg noted the DA’s office and investigators reviewed witnesses statements, time and chronology reports, and thousands of hours of digital evidence, “so that we could get to the heart of the question.” Finner said a 1,200-page report about the concert tragedy will be made publicly available.
During the investigation, questions around the event’s crowd control and safety preparedness arose. A 56-page event operations plan for the Astroworld music festival had included protocols for dangerous scenarios like active shooters and severe weather, but not information on what to do in the event of a crowd surge.
Scott is still facing civil litigation from hundreds of lawsuits filed against him and the event’s organizers in relation to the concert disaster. One case brought by a 21-year-old who was crushed and killed was settled last year, but the suit from the family of a 9-year-old victim remains open. Robert C. Hilliard, an attorney for the family told GMA in a statement on Thursday that “criminal and civil accountability are critical to be sure that those responsible for the loss of innocent lives are made to not only understand the permanent devastation they caused these families — but to show the rule of law applies to the powerful, to the well connected.”
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