Houston police release final investigative report in Astroworld tragedy

It’s been nearly two years, at this point, since Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival ended in tragedy, with 10 people dying in the aftermath of a crowd crush at the November 2021 event. Now, Houston police have issued their final report on the incident, allowing the public to look through the 1,200-page investigative document.

Per ABC13, the release of the report (which you can read in full here) comes just a month after a grand jury ultimately found that Scott held no liability for any of the deaths at the festival, all of which have been attributed to compression asphyxiation. Eight people died in the immediate aftermath of the event, while two more, including a nine-year-old boy, died as a result of injuries sustained during the crowd crush. No one has been found criminally liable for the deaths.

The report follows the investigation from its opening hours, as Houston police attempted to discover what had happened at the music festival, where a crush event began shortly after Scott took the stage after 9 p.m. on November 5. Although the report has been redacted in places, it includes the names of the deceased, among other details; it also includes numerous eyewitness reports from the incident, including chilling accounts of people being knocked to the ground, unable to stand up, for more than 15 minutes as the crowd stepped over, and on to, them. Even couched in the bureaucratic language of official police reporting, it’s harrowing stuff.

Although Scott has been cleared of legal liability in the incident, he and other organizers of the festival are still in the crosshairs of civil litigation. Some of the families of those killed in the event have already settled their lawsuits, but with hundreds of people injured or worse during the event, pending lawsuits are likely to continue for some time. Scott, meanwhile, began releasing new music again in 2022, and began appearing in concert again later that year.