Travis Scott will not face criminal charges in Astroworld tragedy
Written by ABC Audio All Rights Reserved on June 30, 2023
A Texas grand jury has declined to indict rapper Travis Scott and five others in connection with the deadly crowd crush at the 2021 Astroworld Festival in Houston, prosecutors said.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said the grand jury on Thursday, June 29, concluded that there is not enough evidence of guilt to support criminal charges, as reported by ABC News.
“The grand jury found that no crime did occur, that no single individual was criminally responsible,” Ogg said during a press briefing.
On November 5, 2021, a fatal crowd rush occurred during the first night of Scott’s Astroworld Festival, causing the death of 10 concert attendees.
According to Houston Police and witness accounts, the wave of tens of thousands of people moved toward the stage when Scott — and later rapper Drake — appeared. Concert attendees said they were pushed into one another from all sides. As the crowd pressed its way forward, some began to fall, pass out and get trampled by others in the audience. The 10 victims died from compression asphyxia and were located in the same general area, police said.
“One of the key contributing factors to the deaths was the overpopulation and resulting compaction in this quadrant,” Houston Detective Michael Barrow told reporters during the press briefing. “This was not a crowd stampede, this was not a stage rush, this was not a crowd surge …”
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said police completed their criminal investigation into the incident last week, calling it a “very complex investigation.” The investigation will be publicly released, he said.
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