Travis Scott's Lawyer Says City Officials Have 'Backtracked' From Their Statements On Astroworld Tragedy

Travis Scott’s lawyer said city officials have sent “inconsistent messages” in the wake of the Astroworld Festival tragedy that claimed eight lives and injured hundreds on Oct. 5. In a new statement, Atty. Edwin F. McPherson addressed the “finger-pointing” being made by city officials, saying they have “backtracked” from their original statements regarding what had transpired during the event.

“Houston Police Chief Troy Finner was quoted in the New York Times as saying, ‘You cannot just close when you got 50,000 and over 50,000 individuals. We have to worry about rioting, riots, when you have a group that’s that young,'” said McPherson. “Yet, just a short time later, Chief Finner states the responsibility to stop the show falls on Travis,” he continued.

Finner said during a press conference on Wednesday that city officials did not have the power to end Scott’s performance at the festival despite the dangerous situation in the crowd. “The ultimate authority to end the show is with the production and the entertainer,” he said, adding that he did not want to “point fingers” until the investigation was complete.

According to McPherson, it was reported that the Operations Plan said only the festival director and executive producers could stop the show, neither of which belonged to Scott’s crew. “This also runs afoul of HPD’s own previous actions when it shut down the power and sound at this very festival when the performance ran over 5 minutes back in 2019,” the lawyer said.

McPherson also said investigations should stop pointing fingers so they could identify exactly what had transpired during the Festival and how they could prevent another instance of the unfortunate event.

Scott's camp previously claimed the rapper had no idea what was happening in the crowd as he did not hear or see anything that warranted concern. Scott also claimed no one told him to stop his performance until he ended the concert at 10:10 p.m. local time.

“The lights were shining in his eyes and he couldn’t see what was happening,” a source told People. “He thought someone had just passed out, which happens during concerts.”