With each passing day, more information unfolds in the aftermath of the Astroworld Fest tragedy that left eight people dead, including two teenagers.
As more lawsuits are filed against Travis Scott and festival organizers, many are trying to figure out what led to the chaos on Nov. 6. A security guard assigned to work the fest has come forward to shed some light on the subject.
Darius Williams gave an interview to TMZ explaining what he felt was a substandard response of festival security, saying that they were “unprepared” to handle the crowd that day. Williams says the company that hired him, Contemporary Services Corporation (CSC), did orientation and training for workers the day before the festival.
Williams described CSC as “pretty vague” in their instructions to event security. The training session was not extensive, Williams said.
“You have to take the state licensing exam to become a level two security officer,” he said. “However, the training for that was extremely brief. It was an open-book test. The teacher, he was actually giving us the answers as we were going through the books ourselves, and trying to hurry up and fill out the answers.”
On Nov. 6, Williams and his fellow security officers walked the perimeter of NRG Park, where the concert took place. Right away, Williams realized that they were “understaffed in every sense of the word.”
“From what I saw, there was probably one security guard for everyone, 500 to 1,000 people,” Williams said. “Severely understaffed.”
There were 505 event security staffers, 91 armed private security officers, and 76 uniformed Houston police officers assigned to Astroworld, as previously reported by theGrio. Over 50,000 people were in attendance at the time of Scott’s closing set.
Scott was reportedly warned by Houston Chief of Police Troy Finner that there might be crowd control problems particularly in light of injuries taking place at the previous Astroworld Festival in 2019.
In addition to the deaths, hundreds more were injured in the melee when the crowd surged unexpectedly during Scott’s performance. Among the deceased were a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old. A 9-year-old attendee, Ezra Blount, remains in a coma.
The boy was on his father’s shoulders during Scott’s set when the surge caused the father to pass out. He was trampled after falling to the ground, suffering internal injuries to his heart, liver, lungs, and brain, according to the report.
Blount’s family retained civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, along with another firm, to represent them in any future lawsuits.
Scott and Live Nation are facing no fewer than 18 lawsuits amid the tragedy.
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