The lawsuits against Grammy-nominated rapper Travis Scott and Astroworld organizers and promoters are piling up.
The lawsuits collectively point at gross negligence on behalf of Scott, event organizers, and NRG Park venue managers, alleging they failed to keep the Houston festival’s roughly 50,000 attendees under control, resulting in the deaths of eight people and injuries to many more when the packed crowd surged forward within minutes of Scott’s performance beginning on Friday night.
Lawyers for the injured festival goers said Scott and festival organizers failed to develop an adequate safety plan, botched crowd control management, and didn’t bother to properly train staff or provide sufficient medical personnel and supplies ahead of Friday’s event. Their negligence claimed the lives of eight fans between the ages of 14 and 30, the lawyers said.
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Attorneys for Manuel Souza, an Astroworld attendee who alleged he was injured during Scott’s performance, filed a lawsuit Saturday against the musician, festival promoter Live Nation, and its director of operations Darryl Platt, as well as concert organizer ScoreMore, and venue managers, among others. Souza’s lawyers called Friday’s tragedy “predictable and preventable” and said their client is seeking $1 million in monetary relief after Scott and others allowed the venue to devolve into a “complete melee” with inadequate planning.
“Tragically, due to Defendants’ motivation for profit at the expense of concertgoers’ health and safety, and due to their encouragement of violence, at least 8 people lost their lives and scores of others were injured at what was supposed to be a night of fun,” the lawsuit alleges.
Souza’s lawyers insisted that Scott’s tweet earlier this year about “sneaking” wild fans into his sold-out concert “recklessly encouraged fans to breach the barriers and otherwise actively encouraged a culture of violence.”
Ryan S. MacLeod, a partner at the firm that is representing Souza, said Scott “has a history of inciting violence and creating dangerous conditions for concertgoers.”
“He and those who promoted and supported this concert must take responsibility for their heinous actions. We intend to hold them fully accountable by showing that this behavior will not be tolerated in our great city,” he said in a statement to The Daily Beast on Monday.
Scott’s history of amping up chaos at his concerts dates back to at least 2015, when he was arrested after directing fans at Lollapalooza to jump the barricades during his performance.
In 2017, he was arrested again after “inciting a riot” when he encouraged fans to rush the stage at a performance in Arkansas, Souza’s lawyers wrote.
Souza’s lawsuit refers to footage posted by local news outlets that appeared to ominously foreshadow the stampede to come, showing Scott’s fans pushing through the gates and falling over each other as they fought their way into the concert on Friday.
Maria Pena, the mother of Rudy Pena, a 23-year-old college student who died while attending the festival with friends, also filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages against Scott and Scoremore. The lawsuit cited funeral expenses and the mental anguish suffered by Pena before his death, and his family who in the wake of his death are burdened with “the loss of his affection.”
Attorney Ben Crump, representing another attendee, Noah Gutierrez, filed a lawsuit alleging that his 21-year-old client and others in the VIP section had desperately tried to hoist people off the ground as they cried for help.
“As the crowd surged towards the stage at Astroworld, several concertgoers were kicked, stepped on, trampled, and tragically crushed to death,” the lawsuit states. Defendants “failed to stop until over 40 minutes” after city officials reported that the mass casualty event began, the suit alleges.
Shortly after Scott took the stage, the crowd grew chaotic as a crush of attendees surged forward, making it difficult to breathe as some fell to the ground and were trampled as limp and unconscious bodies were crowd-surfed to emergency stations for medical attention.
“We are hearing horrific accounts of the terror and helplessness people experienced—the horror of a crushing crowd and the awful trauma of watching people die while trying unsuccessfully to save them,” Crump said in a statement, urging more injured fans to come forward.
Sean Roberts and Clive Markland, lawyers for Dante Deberardino, blamed their client’s injuries on “inadequate security” and security planning failures that created conditions for a crush that cost lives and injured “hundreds” of attendees.
A slew of other lawsuits from the same legal team in Houston, were filed for injured attendees, Patrick Polier, Wasem Abulawi, Marielena Chavez, Briannae Garcia, Coritius Broussard, Tobenna Okezie, and Natasha Celedon, each seeking $1 million in damages, citing serious injuries due to “the recklessness and conscious indifference” of Scott and Live Nation.
In addition to naming Scott, a lawsuit for attendee Kristian Paredes also named Drake as a defendant, claiming that the hip-hop artist who featured as a surprise guest had “helped incite the crowd” and continued to perform as “the crowd mayhem continued” even though he knew of Scott’s past conduct.
According to that lawsuit, Paredes was at the front of the general admission section when he “felt an immediate push” at the conclusion of a countdown to Scott’s performance just after 9 p.m. “Many begged security guards hired by Live Nation entertainment for help, but were ignored,” the lawsuit states.
Video footage circulating on social media show festival goers pleading with concert staff and cameramen to stop the concert as attendees were trampled and killed.
According to the Houston Chronicle, police have said Live Nation finally agreed at 9:38 p.m. to stop the show after a series of reports about collapsed fans. Scott continued to play his entire set, ending at around 10:15 p.m., the outlet said.
In the aftermath of the deadly concert, Scott wrote in a statement on Twitter: “My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival. I am committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need.”
On Monday, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner issued a statement said he had met with Scott and his head of security before the main event on Friday and had aired “concerns regarding public safety” amid the unprecedented double punch of the pandemic "social tension throughout the nation.”
“I asked Travis Scott and his team to work with HOD for all events over the weekend and to be mindful of his team’s social media messaging on any unscheduled events,” he said, adding that the criminal investigation is ongoing.
