Appearing on CNN on Monday morning, an expert on crowd control at major events stated that rapper Travis Scott, his people and the promoter of the Astroworld concert in Houston have a lot to answer for following the deaths of eight attendees and hundreds more injured after the crowd grew out of control.
As authorities in Houston pick through evidence and speak with attendees in an effort to figure out what transpired at the event, Crowd Management Strategies founder Paul Wertheimer said everything regarding crowd control appears to have been botched.
"Crowd safety experts like me and others have seen this situation historically over decades, causing many deaths to young people in the front of the stage, one of the most dangerous areas for standing room," he told host Jim Sciutto. "So you look at it, and you say, first of all, the crowds are too dense, and you ask the question, who is monitoring the crowd, and who is managing the crowd? And in this case, from what I can tell so far, what we know, nobody seems to have been doing either of those things."
"You realize you have to reduce density before people begin to get crushed," he continued. "I mean, you've heard, we've heard that security for Travis Scott has had a history like most festivals of pulling people out of the front of the stage. That tells you right there, the crowd is dangerous. But they play Russian roulette and on Friday, things went really badly."
"Then you have to say how did they plan for this event?" he continued. "You plan properly and have to know the crowd profile and history of the artist -- not now. People who plan, manage and approve it should have known those things before so you could properly plan."
Watch below:
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