Houston concert deaths spur calls for independent review

The Houston police and fire departments were deeply involved in safety measures for the music festival where a surging crowd killed eight people, playing key roles in crowd control measures, on-site security staffing and the emergency response. The police chief even says he met with the headlining performer before the show.

Now the city’s police department is leading the criminal investigation into how the deadly chaos erupted during Friday night’s performance by rapper Travis Scott.

While a prominent local official is calling for a separate, independent review of the tragedy, experts in crowd safety say an investigation by neutral outsiders could help the city avoid potential conflicts of interest and promote transparency.

Houston Police Department spokeswoman Jodi Silva declined to comment on questions about whether its close involvement in the event created a conflict or if it considered handing the probe off to an outside agency. Such decisions are often made in investigations like police shootings.

“All of the information we have available to put out at this time has been placed out on Twitter,” Silva said.

The police department’s probe would be separate from any independent investigation ordered by

County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County’s top elected official, according to Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the county judge’s office. Hidalgo hasn’t decided who would conduct such an independent review or how it would be done, Lemaitre said Monday.

“She wants to know if this could have been prevented in any way,” Lemaitre said. “It’s also entirely possible that it was not preventable for whatever reason, and that’s something we would like to know, as well.”

Key questions remained unanswered after the Astroworld festival at the Harris County-owned NRG Park. Some of the lingering questions involve what the Houston police and fire departments did before, during and after a crowd surged toward the stage, killing eight people and injuring may more, with more than 300 people treated on-site and at least 13 others hospitalized. Other

questions center on the actions of event organizers.

Astroworld’s organizers laid out security and emergency medical response protocols for the festival in plans filed with Harris County. The 56-page operations plan, obtained by The Associated Press, says that a decision to evacuate the event would be made by the festival director after consultation with other individuals, including the security director. Such plans were filed with Harris County and Houston and have to be reviewed by Houston police officials.

Christopher Slobogin, director of the criminal justice program at Vanderbilt University, said an independent criminal investigation into what happened in Houston could be beneficial to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

Officials have said a private company was primarily responsible for providing security at the festival, but Houston police were also assigned to the event.