Rap star Travis Scott released a video online for his fans on Saturday after eight people died and dozens were injured when he took to the stage at a festival in Houston, Texas on Friday.
Scott, a Houston resident, said he was “devastated” and called on his fans to help the authorities with their enquiries into the incident.
A stampede of fans surging toward the stage during the rappers set at the Astroworld music festival in Houston killed at least eight people and injured dozens more as panic rippled through the crowd of largely young concertgoers, officials said on Saturday.
City Police Chief Troy Finner said his department has opened a criminal investigation by homicide and narcotics detectives following unconfirmed reports that someone in the audience “was injecting other people with drugs.”
The disaster unfolded at NRG Park at around 9:30 p.m. on Friday during the headline performance by Scott, a Grammy-nominated singer and producer, following what police and members of the crowd described as an escalation of unruly behaviour throughout the day.
As fans in the sold-out audience of about 50,000 pressed toward the stage, people began to fall unconscious some apparently suffering cardiac arrest or other medical issues, officials told reporters outside the venue. Minutes later the chaos was declared a “mass casualty incident.”
Twenty-five people were taken to hospitals by ambulance after the crush began, some of them in cardiac arrest, with 13 still hospitalized on Saturday – five under age 18 – following the discharge of four patients, Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters. Eight people died. Most ranged in age from 14 to 27, though one victim’s age was not immediately known, Turner said.
