HOUSTON: Houston police and fire departments were deeply involved in security measures for the concert, where a growing crowd killed eight people who were instrumental in crowd control measures, on-site security staff and emergency response. The police chief even says that he met the main cast before the show.
Now the city’s police department is leading a criminal investigation into how deadly chaos broke out during a Friday night performance by rapper Travis Scott.
While a prominent local official is calling for a separate, independent review of the tragedy, experts in crowd safety say an investigation by neutral outsiders could help the city avoid potential conflicts of interest and promote transparency. . .
Houston Police Department spokeswoman Jodi Silva declined to comment on whether her close involvement in the incident caused the conflict or if she considered handing the investigation over to an outside agency. Such decisions are often taken in investigations like police firing.
Silva said that whatever information is available to us at this time is available on Twitter.
According to Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the county judge’s office, the police department’s investigation will be separate from any independent investigation ordered by County Judge Lena Hidalgo, Harris County’s top elected official. Hidalgo has not decided who will conduct such an independent review or how it will be done, Lemaitre said on Monday.
She wants to know if it could have been stopped somehow, Lemaitre said. It’s also entirely possible that it couldn’t have been prevented for whatever reason, and that’s also something we’d like to know.
Major questions remained unanswered after the Astroworld festival at Harris County-owned NRG Park. Some lengthy questions include what the Houston Police and Fire Department did before, during, and after the crowd marched toward the stage, which killed eight and injured more than 300 people at the site. But at least 13 others were hospitalised. Other questions focused on the actions of the event organizers.
Houston Police and Fire Department officials have said part of their investigation will include reviewing whether concert promoters and others behind the festival adhered to the plans presented for the event.
Organizers of Astroworld set out safety and emergency medical response protocols for the festival in plans filed with Harris County. The 56-page operations plan obtained by the Associated Press states that the decision to evacuate the festival will be made by the festival director after consultation with other persons, including the security director. Such plans were filed with Harris County and Houston and are to be reviewed by Houston police officers.
Officials have said that a private company was primarily responsible for providing security at the festival, but Houston police were also assigned to organize the event. The plan says that medical care at the festival was provided by ParaDocs, a private company based in New York.
Houston Fire Chief Samuel P said during a news conference Saturday that the injuries and size of the crowd quickly overwhelmed private companies providing security and medical services. Matar said that even though the medical operations plan did not require that the fire department already have units deployed around the festival, his agency decided to keep those units in place in case the incident escalated.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finer said in a statement Monday that he had a “brief and respectful” meeting with Scott and the Rappers’ chief of security on the Friday before their performance. The chief said he asked them to work with the police department.
I expressed my concern about public safety and in my 31 years of law enforcement experience, I have never seen a time when citizens of all ages face great challenges, including a global pandemic and social tensions across the country. For, Finer said.
Yes. Keith Still, a visiting professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk in the United Kingdom, said his independent investigation of similar tragedies usually begins with an evaluation of an incident safety clearance process. He or she evaluates how the permit was issued and whether the event organizer complied with the permit’s conditions.
He said that the police sometimes get caught in even trying to get accounts of eye witnesses. By the time he did it all, he had a large, confused crowd left, with 50,000 potential eyewitnesses.
Houston police and fire officials said their investigation would include a review of videos taken by concert promoter Live Nation, as well as clips of dozens of people at the show. Officials also plan to review the event’s safety plan and determine whether its organizers have properly complied with permit requirements.
Steven Edelman, vice president of industry group Event Safety Alliance, said in an email that he has no problem with public safety officials authorizing an independent investigation into the Houston tragedy.
I hope and agree that the investigation will be conducted by an outsider who is not subject to the influence of agencies affiliated with Astroworld. This is not an unusual scenario in such complex circumstances, wrote Edelman, whose organization followed the collapse of a stage at the Indiana State Fair in 2011, in which seven people were killed.
Edelman said private forensic analysis experts independently investigated the collapse of the Indiana Stage, investigating Stage roof engineering and crowd management.
Edelman said of the investigation in Houston that’s a good example of what we expect here.
Finer has defended how long it took for the concert to be called off after the first signs of trouble. The police chief said his department immediately informed the organizers of the event that attendees were going downstairs. The incident was brought to an end after a 40-minute discussion between the fire department and NRG Park officials.
When you have 50,000 people over 50,000, you can’t shut down, right? Finer said. We need to worry about rioting riots when you have a youth group.
Matar said city officials limited attendance to 50,000, even though the venue could have 200,000 depending on fire codes.
Matar said that crowd control at the point of the stage was the issue, especially as the crowd started moving towards the stage.
Live Nation said in a statement that it is cooperating with local authorities “so that both fans and their families can get the answers they want and deserve, and we will address all legal matters in a timely manner.”
Hidalgo tweeted on Saturday that she is calling for a fair and independent investigation into what happened. She also said that her office is grateful for the work done by the police and fire departments.
It may well be that this tragedy is the result of unforeseen events, the coming together of circumstances that could not possibly have been avoided, Hidalgo said. But until we decide that, I’ll ask tough questions.
The Hidalgos Office is not a law-enforcement agency and does not have the authority to conduct criminal investigations.
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This story has been updated to correct the name of Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for the county judges, instead of Maitre.
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Kunzelman reported from College Park, Maryland. Associated Press reporter Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed to this report.
Disclaimer: This post has been self-published from the agency feed without modification and has not been reviewed by an editor
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