After a 1,200-page report from the Houston Police Department, new details about the Astroworld crowd crush tragedy are coming out.
According to the police investigation, the rapper had a contract in place with Apple requiring the rapper to finish the set to receive a $4.5 million payment. The report does not speculate on whether this led the rapper to continue the concert 37 minutes past when it was declared a mass casualty event. A grand jury has declined charges against Scott, but the contract could play a role in the civil litigation that Scott faces.
“It could be very important,” Steve Herman, an attorney told the Houston Landing. “He’s never going to admit that that was his motivation, but if there’s other circumstantial evidence from which a jury can infer that that was a motivation in not stopping the concert, even though he knew people were getting crushed—that’s pretty powerful stuff.
“There’s a good chance he didn’t even read the contract,” Herman continues. “It could be important evidence, but it could also be completely irrelevant. You would have to know a lot more about why that provision was in there.”
After the Astroworld crowd crush, Scott took to social media to say he had no idea people were dying. But at least two audio engineers have disputed that account in the same police report. They told Houston detectives that they audibly heard associates informing the rapper that people were dying in the audience. Scott was questioned for several hours about his course of action during the concert—which did not halt for 37 minutes as emergency workers fought to get aid to those who needed it.
The Apple contract with Travis Scott to stream Astroworld 2021 had five stipulations to fulfill in order to receive the full $4.5 million payment from Apple. “Of those five acts, one was to complete the show,” writes Houston Police detective Josh Caten. Caten suggests Apple was brought in late to help plan a livestream to further offset debts incurred in building the massive Astroworld stage.