Travis Scott shares new video statement about Astroworld incident
Scott says he's working with authorities to identify victims and help their families
The aftermath of the deadly crowd surge during Travis Scott’s performance at his Astroworld festival in Houston on Friday continues to unfold, with authorities still looking into the stampede that killed eight people—including two minors—and injured hundreds of others. Police are also continuing to look into reports of drug-spiking (as in, people being stuck with needles and injected with drugs in the crowd) in the lead-up to the incident, with Deadline saying that at least one person was injected, “resulting in a drug overdose.”
Scott, who was onstage when all of this happened and reportedly made a few attempts to stop the show when it looked like things were getting out of hand (though he did not fully stop it), released a statement yesterday in which he said he was “absolutely devastated” by what had happened. Now, in his first on-camera appearance since Friday, Scott has shared a video statement in which he—appearing very distraught—says that he’s working with authorities to “identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time.”
In apparent acknowledgement of the people who have pointed out that he could’ve completely stopped the show when he saw what was happening, Scott reiterates a few times that he never could’ve imagined something like this happening and that he’s doing everything he can to support the people trying to figure out what happened.
Deadline’s write-up also says that Houston’s police chief has opened a criminal investigation “by homicide and narcotics detectives” over the drug-spiking rumors, with the prevailing theory being that it could’ve led to a panic in the crowd. The story also says that attacks like that have “recently cropped up in UK nightclubs.” Autopsies are apparently being done on the victims of the incident on Friday now, and authorities expect to release more identities at some point today.