Travis Scott performs at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. Concertgoers have described the packed crowd growing dangerous even before headliner Travis Scott appeared on stage, and seeing people collaps
Amy Harris/Invision/APMore than two months after the Astroworld crowd-control disaster claimed the lives of 10 people, the Houston Police Department on Friday asked attendees to upload their photos and video to a new dedicated website designed by the FBI.
“To ensure that we have captured all possible evidence for a complete investigation, we have partnered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for additional technical assistance,” Houston Police said in a statement, adding that detectives previously reviewed “countless hours” of video, just not through such a sophisticated repository.
“I think this took far too long. They should have hit the gas immediately upon starting the investigation,” Dr. Darrin Porcher, a former NYPD lieutenant and adjunct professor at Pace University’s School of Criminal Justice, says. Porcher adds that the two-month delay suggests “the chain of command kind of fell asleep at the wheel.”
Porcher, who’s serving as an expert to Hilliard Martinez Gonzalez LLP, a plaintiffs’ law firm already representing more than 700 Astroworld attendees, says the FBI has a large field office covering the Houston area with resources that would be well-known to local police.
“For the life of me, I can’t understand why this wasn’t done immediately, because they clearly understood the police department only has so many people. You’re conducting an investigation with 50,000 people at one location. It’s clear, and it’s apparent, that the Houston Police Department didn’t have the ability to get this done, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Porcher said. “They didn’t drive it as quickly as they should have.”
The new FBI website asks concertgoers to upload a maximum of four files and share their name and contact information.
Asked if the two-month delay might mean valuable images and video might already be deleted and gone forever, lawyer Alex Hilliard said he didn’t think so.
“The plaintiff lawyers have been diligently obtaining all of this information, so to the extent that prosecutors need it and are asking for it, it’s already within organized, available portals that exits in a lot of the firms,” Hilliard tells Rolling Stone. “In the next couple of weeks, there will be a lot of information provided to prosecutors to establish that there was absolute criminal activity which occurred in this case.”
The terrifying Astroworld crowd crush killed eight people on Nov. 5, the first night of Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival at NRG Park in Houston. Two more people, including 9-year-old Ezra Blount, later died from their injuries.
The panoply of lawsuits filed over the tragedy name concert promoter Live Nation, Scott and various concert security vendors among the lead defendants.
Live Nation and Scott have denied any wrongdoing. In a video message posted on Instagram, Scott, whose legal name is Jacques Webster, said he “could just never imagine the severity of the situation.” His partner Kylie Jenner, mother of his daughter Stormi, also released a statement saying she and Scott were “broken and devastated.”
10cc drummer Paul Burgess has announced that he is leaving the band because the demands of touring have become too much for him.
The 75-year-old musician, who also spent time performing with Jethro Tull, Camel, Magna Carta, and The Icicle Works, has chosen to walk away from the legendary rock group after more than five decades.
He shared: “After so many wonderful years with 10cc, I must admit that the rigours of touring are no longer manageable for me as I get older, and I feel it’s time to let go of the long hours in airports and endless travel on buses.
“I’m not planning to stop playing altogether. I will still perform but at a pace that feels right, working alongside old friends and a new group of fellow musicians called The Guilty Men.”
Frontman Graham Gouldman confessed that it will feel unusual to perform without his “longest-running musical associate.”
He explained: “When Paul and I first joined forces in 10cc, we never could have imagined that we’d still be at it after 30 years, let alone 52.
“Paul has been my longest musical partner and it will feel different to turn around and see another drummer, but I completely understand why he no longer wants to sit on a plane for 14 hours or wake up in a new hotel every day for weeks at a time.”
Ben Stone, who has previously played with Mike and The Mechanics and Bonnie Tyler, will be taking over on drums.
Paul, who had several runs with 10cc after joining in 1973, performed his final show with the I’m Not In Love band in Alexandria, Virginia this past September.
The group is set to continue their And Another Bloody Greatest Hits Tour in the UK next year.
