Travis Scott has pled guilty TWICE for encouraging fans to rush the stage

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Travis Scott shared his shock after eight people were crushed to death at his Houston concert on Friday – but the rapper has twice been convicted for encouraging fans to jump security barriers and rush the stage at previous concerts. 

Scott, born Jacques Bermon Webster II, posted an emotional video saying he was ‘devastated’ about the deaths at Houston’s Astroworld Fest on his Instagram Saturday.

He added: ‘I can’t imagine anything like this happening.’

Meanwhile, festivalgoer Kristian Paredes, 23, from Austin, Texas, has sued Scott and Drake for over a million dollars, claiming the rappers ‘incited the crowd’ and accused the rappers, Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation of negligence.   

There’s no suggestion Scott asked fans to rush his stage during the Friday night performance that ended with eight deaths.

However, the fatal situation has raised eyebrows over footage showing multiple incidents of crowds stampeding towards Scott at prior performances at Lollapalooza in Chicago in 2015 and at an outdoor venue in Arkansas in 2017. Both incidents resulted in misdemeanor convictions for Scott. 

One nurse who was in attendance has rubbished claims that a man was seen injecting people with a needle moments before the crush.

A statement issued on Astroworld’s account also mentioned people suffering from cardiac arrests and asked anyone with knowledge to contact Houston PD, sparking claims that organizers are trying to pass the buck over alleged poor crowd control that turned deadly.  

Houston PD Chief Troy Finner said there had been reports of a security guard stabbed with a needle and later being revived with Narcan, although there have been no reports of the crowd being drugged in the same way. 

Meanwhile, a fan who was paralyzed after falling from a balcony during a Scott concert in 2017 has blasted the singer for putting fans’ safety at risk. 

A lawyer for Kyle Green, a 27-year-old who was injured at Scott’s April 2017 concert at Terminal 5 in New York City, says that Green was ‘devastated and heartbroken’ for the families of the eight people who died at Scott’s Friday night concert. 

Green says he was forced over the edge of a balcony at the venue, which he called ‘severely crowded.’ He broke several bones and vertebrae and can only walk with a ‘significant, significant disability.’

In a statement to DailyMail.com, Green’s attorney Howard Hershenhorn said that Scott’s security picked Green up ‘like a sack of potatoes’ instead of ‘putting him in a neck brace and on the backboard.’

‘He’s even more incensed by the fact that it could have been avoided had Travis learned his lesson in the past and changed his attitude about inciting people to behave in such a reckless manner,’ Hershenhorn told Rolling Stone. 

At the 2017 show, Scott had encouraged another fan to jump off the balcony. 

‘I see you, but are you gonna do it?’ Scott asked. ‘They gonna catch you. Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared!’ 

In video of the incident, one fan can be heard saying, ‘I don’t wanna die in here.’ 

Green sued Scott, his manager, concert promoter Bowery Presents and a security company six months after the incident while he was still confined to a wheelchair. The case is pending.

In August 2015, the 29-year-old, who is dating Kylie Jenner, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless conduct after his fans jumped a security barricade at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago.

The Office of Emergency Management said at the time: ‘The performer played one song and then began telling fans to come over the barricades. Due to the security’s quick response, the situation was remedied immediately and no fans were injured.

The performer fled the scene but was arrested shortly after, according to station WLS.

‘All my real ragers jump the barricade right now. Let’s go. Come over,’ he said at the 2015 show as his young fans obliged. ‘I want chaos.’ Hundreds were seen storming towards the stage, although there were no reports of anyone being injured.  

In February 2018, he pled guilty to another misdemeanor charge – this one for disorderly conduct – after he encouraged his fans to rush the stage and bypass security at a May 2017 concert at the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion in the city of Rogers. 

Scott paid a 7,465.31 fine, according to KFSM. 

The Rogers Police Department said several people were injured during the rush and  treated on the scene by the fire department and staff from a local hospital.

Weeks before that, a fan at a Scott concert in Manhattan says he was carried over the side of a balcony after the rapper asked fans to rush forward, and was subsequently paralyzed as a result.  

Meanwhile, a nurse who fainted and was crowd-surfed to the stage at Friday’s concert described the scene as overwhelmed medical staff dealt with a sea of bodies. She also pushed back on claims that a man stabbing people with a needle was the source of the eight deaths.

‘This is a lie. They trying to cover their asses. Nobody who actually was there has said this s**t. Nobody saw this s**t,’ said Madeline Eskins.

Paredes – who filed the complaint against the rappers, Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation of negligence – alleges that special guest Drake ‘came on stage alongside Travis Scott and helped incite the crowd.’ 

He accuses Drake of continuing to perform with Travis Scott ‘as the crowd became out of control’ and ‘while the crowd mayhem continued.’   

Paredes is now seeking over $1million for his bodily injuries, some of which he claims is permanent, as well as medical expenses.  

Paredes says he was at the front of the general admission section, with just a metal barrier separating him from the VIP Section.  

He says he felt an ‘immediate push’ as the countdown to Travis Scott’s performance ended and he entered the stage around 9pm.

‘The crowd became chaotic and a stampede began leaving eight dead and dozens including Kristian Paredes severely injured,’ the filing states.  

‘Many begged security guards hired by Live Nation Entertainment for help, but were ignored,’ it says. 

Paredes says in the lawsuit that the injuries and deaths are due to the ‘negligence, carelessness and recklessness’ of the ‘defendants, their agents, servants and employees, in the ownership, management, maintenance, operation, supervision, and the control of the subject premises.’

He is seeking a trial by jury.  

Texas attorney Thomas J. Henry, who is representing Paredes, said, ‘There is no excuse for the events that unfolded at NRG stadium on Friday night.

‘There is every indication that the performers, organizers, and venue were not only aware of the hectic crowd but also that injuries and potential deaths may have occurred. Still, they decided to put profits over their attendees and allowed the deadly show to go on.’

‘Live musical performances are meant to inspire catharsis, not tragedy. Many of these concert-goers were looking forward to this event for months, and they deserved a safe environment in which to have fun and enjoy the evening. Instead, their night was one of fear, injury, and death.’  

A crowd management expert told KHOU that standing-room-only setups with no seats or aisles are the most dangerous ways to organize audiences.

‘From Elvis Presley on, everybody ha known this is problematic,’ said Paul Wertheimer, founder of Crowd Management Strategies.

‘It forces people in the crowd to work against each other,’ he said. ‘This is the worst thing that can happen in crowd safety.’

Friday was the first night of the two-day Astroworld festival, which was inaugurated by Scott in 2018 to promote his critically acclaimed album of the same name.

The lineup included Scott along with artists such as SZA, Bad Bunny, Tame Impala, Earth Wind & Fire, Toro y Moi and Roddy Rich.

SZA, an R&B singer who had performed hours before Scott took the stage, responded to the tragedy on Twitter Saturday: ‘Speechless about last night I’m actually in shock n don’t even know what to say. Just praying for everyone in Houston especially the families of those that lost their lives.’ 

Video published Sunday by TMZ shows a woman’s head violently hitting the floor after multiple police officers pulled the unconscious woman, who was lying on a stretcher, out of the crowd feet-first, with no one to support the other side of her body as it fell from the barricade.

Eight people, ranging in age from 14 to 27, were killed as people pushed against one another while trying to get as close as possible to the Grammy-winning performer. 

John Hilgert is the youngest victim of the horrific crush, which killed eight people at Friday night’s Astroworld Festival in Houston. 

He was a ninth grader at Memorial High School and was remembered as a talented baseball player and a popular student.

Hilgert was pictured as Houston’s medical examiner released a photograph of another victim they’re trying to identify, KTRK reported. 

The man is believed to be in his early 20s, has short dark hair, a goatee and was wearing white size 11 Nikes. He was six feet two inches tall and weighed 498 pounds.

Danish Baig, 27, was one of the people who died after a surge at the concert. University of Dayton student Franco Patino, 21, a senior, also died at day one of the Astroworld festival at NRG Park in Houston, Texas, the school said. 

Baig was killed after trying to save a relative during the stampede at the concert, his brother Basil Baig confirmed on Facebook. 

‘My brother was killed in this horrendous Astroworld event that was managed poorly and supervised by such horrible people,’ Basil wrote on Facebook. 

He commended his late brother for his ‘courageous act’ and called him a ‘beautiful soul.’ 

Patino was a huge fan of the rapper and travelled from Southern Ohio to Houston for the event with his best friend to celebrate his friend’s birthday, according to WGN9. 

The college senior was studying engineering and was a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Alpha Psi Lambda. 

Scott responded to the incident in a video on his Instagram stories on Saturday.

‘My fans really mean the world to me and I always want to leave them with a positive experience,’ Scott said.

‘Anytime I can make out anything that’s going on, ya know, I stop the show and you know, help them get the help they need. I could just never imagine the severity of the situation.’

The crowd at the Houston-based music festival surged toward the stage during Scott’s performance, knocking other concertgoers over and squeezing them together so tightly that they could not breathe or move their arms.

‘To the ones that was lost last night, we’re working right now to ID the families so we can help assist them through this tough time,’ the rapper shared.

‘I’m honestly just devastated… I could never imagine anything like this just happening.’

Scott said he is working closely with local authorities as they investigate the crowd surge and encouraged anyone with information about the deadly incident.

His pregnant girlfriend Kylie Jenner, who was at the show with her model sister Kendall, put out her own statement after the ill-fated concert. 

‘I want to make it clear we weren’t aware of any fatalities until the news came out after the show and in no world would have continued filming or performing.

‘I am sending my deepest condolences to all the families during this difficult time and will be praying for the healing of everyone who has been impacted.’

‘Everyone is shocked and upset. Kylie and Kendall were in the audience, but they are not injured. Travis won’t be performing tonight. The concert is canceled,’ a source informed People magazine.

At least 23 people were rushed to a hospital – 17 of whom were caught up in the worst of the incident, including a 10-year-old, police said.

Others whose deaths have been confirmed to various news outlets are 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez and Rodolfo ‘Rudy’ Peña, 23.

Some described not being able to breathe, feeling their ribs crushed and not being able to move their arms as the pushing and shoving went on.

Scott was the subject of a 2019 Netflix documentary titled Travis Scott: Look Mom I Can Fly, which depicts fans with bloody noses at his concerts and shows the difficulty of staging his shows while avoiding police intervention.

Eskins, a concertgoer who describes herself as an ICU nurse, wrote a lengthy Instagram post on Saturday detailing what happened to her at the show.

She says she fainted in the crowd Friday night after she wasn’t able to breathe.

Someone then crowd-surfed her unconscious body to a security guard, who put her in a section backstage where medical staff was frantically trying to save people ‘with eyes rolled back into their heads’ and ‘bleeding from their nose and mouth.’

‘I yelled, “has ANYBODY checked a pulse?’ she recalled.

‘Please come help us,’ a security guard told her after she identified herself as an ICU nurse, she said. 

Scott continued to perform for 37 minutes after first responders were called to the event, according to the Houston Chronicle. Social media video from the concert shows fans asking camera operators to stop the show.

Tickets to the two-day Astroworld festival sold out in under an hour in May, when Scott announced in a since-deleted tweet: ‘We still sneaking the wild ones in.’

Eskins recalls seeing three bodies sprawled out behind the general admission crowd as medical staff performs CPR with little resources or training.

‘I ask where the ambu bag is, where the AED is, where the stretcher and ambulance is, where tf any s*** is and they said essentially there is none,’ Eskins writes.

‘There’s one ambu bag, one stretcher and one AED for 3 – now 4 – people who are pulseless and blue. 

‘People from the crowd are trying to help. Teenagers are doing CPR trying to help but they’re doing it incorrectly. Then I see there’s other people doing CPR on people who still have a pulse bc nobody has done a pulse check. It was an absolute s**t show.’

Over the weekend, videos from Friday’s deadly concert have circulated on social media, with one depicting Scott humming into the microphone as security carries out an unconscious young man, though he appears to have asked security to help the crowd moments before.

Eskins also posted a story calling pushing back on claims, published by TMZ, that a man with a needle was going around and injecting people with something.  

‘This is a lie,’ she wrote. ‘They trying to cover their asses. Nobody who actually was there has said this s****. Nobody saw this s***.’

Houston police chief Troy Finner said a security guard felt a prick in his neck and immediately fell unconscious while he was trying to restrain somebody else, according to TMZ.

The guard was revived using Narcan, used to undo opioid overdoses, and medical staff confirmed that he had been stabbed with a syringe.  

Houston police chief Troy Finner says the investigation into the deaths will leave ‘no stones unturned.’

‘This has not happened to us in Houston since I’ve been a police officer and we take pride in it. And we’re going to get down to the bottom of it,’ Finner said at a press conference Saturday, according to KHOU.

‘A lot of narratives right now. A lot of them on social media and even last night,’ he added. 

‘I think that all of us need to be respectful of the families and make sure we follow the facts and the evidence. And that’s what we’re trying to do here in the Houston Police Department. I will tell you one of the narratives was that someone was injecting other people with drugs.’