“Performers are not expected to afford special protections to the public,” the rapper's lawyers wrote in the filing Monday.
Travis Scott has asked to be dismissed from ongoing lawsuits linked to the deadly Astroworld crowd rush, according to a motion filed in Houston on Monday, with Scott's lawyers arguing he was not responsible for safety of events and that “performers are not expected to provide special protection to the audience, nor to protect them from the rest of the crowd”.
The move comes more than two years after 10 people were killed and hundreds more injured during Scott's show in November 2021. Drake, who came out as a surprise guest at the end of Scott's show at Astroworld, made a similar motion to be fired and last week.
Scott and his team have said in public statements and court filings that the rapper was unaware of the tragedy both during the performance and immediately after the concert. In the motion filed Monday, Scott's attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, wrote that the evidence “demonstrates that the Scott defendants were not responsible for the security or operations of the venue or the layout of the venue.” Even if they were, Petrocelli wrote, “the evidence establishes that the Scott defendants acted diligently to protect against any reasonably foreseeable danger, as due care requires.”
“No one disputes that tragedy struck the Astroworld festival,” the motion said. “But promoting and showing up at a concert doesn't equal the power to control a crowd or design a venue safely. Basic tort principles prevent the Scott defendants from being held liable for a tragedy resulting from forces lawfully controlled by others.”
Scott was deposed five months ago and Drake last November. Scott's deposition was originally scheduled for September, but was dropped again in early October as plaintiffs' attorneys told the court they could not obtain Scott's phone records. Scott's lawyers said the rapper's phone sank to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and the files could not be retrieved.
A grand jury in Houston ruled last June that Scott and several organizers behind the festival will not face criminal charges over the festival. Houston police released a lengthy 1,266-page report a month later, detailing a disturbing and chaotic scene amid the tragedy, along with interviews with Scott, his manager David Stroberg, Drake, festival organizers and workers of the crew.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/travis-scott-dismissal-motion-astroworld-festival-1234995916/