HOUSTON – Travis Scott is now asking to be dropped from civil litigation involving the deadly 2021 Astroworld Festival.
A motion for summary judgment filed by Scott’s attorneys Monday reads, “Performers are not expected to render special protection to the audience, nor to safeguard them from the rest of the crowd.” His attorneys further argue Scott was a performer and not responsible for crowd safety and management.
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KPRC 2 Investigates obtained depositions addressing the communication behind the scenes while fans were being crushed, clearly indicating risk and safety management officials were concerned about the crowd’s well-being long before Drake took the stage with Scott at the festival..
10 people lost their lives in a crowd crush at the concert. The youngest was only nine years old.
Court documents show safety and risk professionals Seyth and Shawna Boardman wanting to stop the concert as early as 9:00 pm.
SEE ALSO: Rapper Drake and Apple file motions to dismiss Astroworld lawsuit
A text message from Shawna Boardman at 9:00 pm shows, “Stage right of main is getting crushed. This is bad.”
She goes on to add, “Pull tons over the rail unconscious. There’s panic in people’s eyes. This could get worse quickly.”
The person she was texting replied, “Yes.”
“I would pull the plug, but that’s just me,” she follows up. “I know they’ll try to fight through it, but I would want it on the record that I didn’t advise this to continue. Someone’s going to end up dead.”
While running around the concert area before the concert was shut down, Shawna Boardman tells attorneys, “We saw people starting to come towards us.”
Seyth Boardman was the Safety and Risk Director for the Astroworld Festival.
Days before the festival, he shared his concerns about the venue and stages. His team eventually made corrections but still wanted a two-stage option.
SEE ALSO: Houston Police Department’s report on Astroworld Festival highlights terror from concertgoers
“We had widened the pathway between stage 1 and stage 2 quite extensively. We had removed ride -- we had removed a Ferris wheel from that same area. We had removed rides from the stage 2 area. We had reorientated the layout of stage 2. We had removed -- or I should say moved the VIP of stage 2. We had created exits at stage 2. We had reorientated the barricade of stage 2. We -- I think we eliminated a skate park. We opened up Lantern Point for flow to create flow around the other side of VIP into the stage left side. And there could be more that I’m not remembering,” he told attorneys.
During Scott’s performance, Seyth Boardman went to the main stage where Scott was performing to shut down the concert.
There he spoke to a man named Bizzy, who had a microphone that went straight to Scott’s ear.
“[H]e said something to the effect of, we gotta shut this down. We got people dying out there. We got -- somebody’s dead or -- something -- something with regards to, people are dead. And then I spoke to him, and I said, I don’t -- I don’t know if they’re dead. Two might be. Or something like that. There’s definitely people getting CPR. It’s not good. We have to shut this down. Something to that effect,” Boardman recalls.
He told the lawyers he was worried shutting the concert down quickly, may lead to riots or stampeding. Boardman shared he wanted to give everyone as much time as he could.
“I remember telling him that we needed to shut down by 10:00. And I believe it was 8:52 when we were having this conversation,” Boardman said. “So I just told him it was important that Travis shut it down. Travis needs to shut the show down. Travis needs to do it right, needs to do it properly.”
Then Boardman would learn special guest Drake was coming on stage next.
“He has a microphone. So I’ve been in this situation, where I know that that microphone speaks to Travis, in his in-ears. And he said, Drake is supposed to end it. Drake is supposed to -- I think it was maybe two songs or something. I’m not sure. But -- and I just said, get him up here now. We need to end this by 10:00. This has to end by 10:00. So he talked back to Travis again. He looked back towards me, and he’s like, I got you, man. I got you. I said, all right. We’re ending at 10:00.”
RELATED: Travis Scott’s attorney provides more details on communication timeline
While that was happening, fans like Ayden Cruz were being crushed.
“So I prayed to [God] and asked for, you know, a second chance...and I prayed over my girlfriend,” Cruz tells KPRC 2 Investigates.
Cruz was in the section where a majority of the victims were crushed to death including his friend Brianna Rodriguez.
The concert according to Houston Police Reports, ended before 9:30 pm. It would be hours later before emergency crews had a handle on the situation.
Last year a Harris County grand jury declined to indict Travis Scott, or anyone else involved in the event, on criminal charges. As KPRC 2 has reported, Drake and Apple are also asking to be dropped from the civil litigation.
SEE ALSO: Astroworld Tragedy: A closer look at the six people who were not indicted