Rapper Travis Scott reportedly has a history of inciting chaos at his concerts, according to a 2015 video that resurfaced following the deaths of eight people at the artist’s most recent Houston concert.
The 2015 incident happened at the OpenAir Festival in St. Gallen, Switzerland, after Scott began crowd surfing. Someone in the crowd allegedly tried to take Scott’s shoes off of his feet, prompting the rapper to shout at someone in the crowd while encouraging others to attack him.
“You tried to take my shoe?’ You want to be a thief?’ Travis shouted, accusing the concertgoers of trying to take the Yeezy shoes that he was wearing at the time. “F**k him up! F**k him up.”
While holding a shoe in his hand, Scott spat into the crowd before security escorted the unknown man away from the concert, Fader reports.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, numerous people were injured and multiple people died at the Astroworld Festival last Friday, headlined by Scott. The tragic events at NRG Park in Houston began around 9:30 p.m. when about 50,000 concertgoers began to press toward the front of the stage where Scott was performing.
A security guard who was in the crowd was reportedly poked in the neck with a needle and that medics treated him with Narcan, which helps revive people from opioid overdoses. First responders are said to have confirmed that a mark on the man’s neck was consistent with a needle injection site.
Narcan was also deployed on some other attendees, the police chief said.
“We do know that there were several, many instances where they did administer Narcan on-site,” Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said.
Of the 25 people who were brought to local hospitals, 11 of them were in cardiac arrest, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said, according to KHOU-TV. As of Saturday evening, 13 of them were still in the hospital. Five of them are minors, including at least one who is just 10 years old.
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Authorities believe that others were hurt after being trampled when concertgoers swarmed toward the stage. About 300 people were treated for injuries at a field hospital set up near the concert.
Houston Police Executive Assistant Chief Larry Satterwhite was working the festival Friday night and told reporters that, “once we started having the mass casualty incident … it all happened at once.”
“It seemed like it happened over the course of just a few minutes. Suddenly, we had several people down on the ground experiencing some type of cardiac arrest or some type of medical episode.”
First responders were stationed at the park for the weekend festival, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the injuries. According to Finner, once it was obvious there was a serious problem occurring, organizers shut the concert down.
Festival organizers released a statement Saturday morning saying their focus was “on supporting local officials however we can.”
“As authorities mentioned in their press conference earlier, they are looking into the series of cardiac arrests that took place,” the statement said. “If you have any relevant information on this, please reach out to Houston Police. Thank you to our partners at the Houston Police Department, Fire Department, and NRG Park for their response and support.”
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[Feature Photo: Travis Scott performs on day one of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)]
