First $1M Lawsuit Filed In 'Horrible – Yet Preventable Tragedy' At Astroworld Festival
HOUSTON (CBSDFW.COM) – Manuel Souza of Harris County has filed the first lawsuit against several entities involved in Friday's mass casualty event at the Astroworld Festival in Houston. At least eight people died and numerous others were injured.
The victims were 14, 16, two were 21, two were 23 and one was 27 years old, while one of the victim's ages remains unknown, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced in a news conference Saturday evening.
The lawsuit, which seeks at least $1 million in damages on behalf of Souza, alleges that he suffered serious bodily injuries after he was trampled shortly after rapper Travis Scott took the stage. Souza is suing Scott, as well as Live Nation, who was responsible for security at the festival.
Calling the incident "a horrible – yet preventable tragedy," the lawsuit claims that those responsible for the festival were negligent.
Video shared via social media shows how a stampede of concertgoers breached a security gate around NRG Park. Trampling over one another, this happened hours before the show began. Impatient fans appeared not to want to wait to enter. The lawsuit contains photos of people rushing the gates that afternoon.
"Yet defendants made the conscious decision to let the show go on, despite the extreme risks of harm to concertgoers," the lawsuit alleges.
It also says that several times during the show, "emergency vehicles literally drove through the massive crowd to render aid to concertgoers who had suffered serious obvious injury."
It goes on to describe the horror victims experienced:
"This was against a backdrop of multiple reports of tramplings, patrons losing consciousness, patrons being unable to breath due to profound lack of crowd control, inadequate water, inadequate security, and a lack of exit routes. So many people were hurt, and so few emergency personnel were provided by Defendants, that patrons themselves had to conduct CPR on their fellow concertgoers. Yet defendants made the conscious decision to let the show go on, despite the extreme risk of harm to concertgoers that was escalating by the moment."
Souza's lawsuit also details Scott's alleged past behavior, which it said encouraged fans to breach security barriers and "bum rush" the stage.
In 2015, Scott was arrested for disorderly conduct in Chicago for inciting violence at a concert by encouraging fans to breach barricades. Two years later, he was arrested for inciting a riot in Arkansas at a concert. In the same year, 2017, a fan was paralyzed at a Scott concert in New York City after a crowd allegedly incited by Scott pushed him off a balcony.
The day after the incident, Scott tweeted, expressing feeling devastated about what happened.
"My fans really mean the world to me," Scott said. "And I always just really want to leave them with a positive experience, and any time I can make out, you know, anything that's going on, you know I stop the show, you know, and help them get the help they need."
