Rapper Travis Scott cleared of criminal
charges by a grand jury over the deadly
astral world tragedy just two hours ago.
Houston's Police Chief and the
Harris County District Attorney's
Office showed the public the evidence
presented to the grand jury from
a 19 month long investigation.
Tonight we do have team
coverage on today's decision.
Annie, Ellie Ruiz and Matt Doherty
all over this story today.
Let's start with Matt, who was
at that press conference with.
Houston police in the DA's office, Matt
Yeah, the grand jury determined
that 10 deaths were not caused
by any single individual.
We're told investigators and prosecutors
spent almost two years reviewing
evidence and interviewing witnesses.
Today a the Astro World investigators
gave us a sample of what was
presented to the grand jury.
Investigators say the 10 people who were
killed died from compression asphyxia.
They also called this slow compaction.
Just to be clear,
this was not a crowd Stampede.
This was not a stage rush.
This was not a crowd surge.
This was a slow compaction
or constriction into this
quadrant resulting in.
Collapses within the crowd.
Two of the dead were younger than
15 years old. Earlier today,
the attorney for Travis Scott
said HPD could have stopped the
concert whenever they wanted.
I asked HPD Chief Troy Finner
if he had a response to that.
He did not, only telling everyone to
read HPD's final Astro World Report.
Chief Finner says the entire investigation
will be made public in the near future.
Annie Ellie Ruiz is at the courthouse.
That's where the grand jury
made its decision today.
She also spoke with Travis Scott's lawyer,
Annie Ellie.
Well, that's right,
a sense of relief, he said.
And not just for his client, Travis Scott,
but I'm sure for the five other
people who paced who faced a possible
indictment from this grand jury.
Now take a look.
We met with him outside of the
grand jury room as he waited for
any kind of news to be made today.
Now, we know that HPD investigators
presented evidence along with the
DA's office to the grand jury,
and after hearing that evidence,
they found insufficient probable cause and
that Scott and five others committed a crime.
The clerk's office document says it was an
involuntary homicide investigation presented,
but it's unclear what
those exact charges were.
Travis, Scott's attorney,
said his client did nothing wrong.
Matter of fact,
Travis was very open with investigators
and met with him for several hours,
answered all their questions.
Just a day after the incident,
he when we asked him if his client
saw anything strange from the stage or
why he didn't stop the concert sooner.
Here's what he had to say.
He sees nothing.
In fact, that's one of the things we
did present to the grand jury is the
lighting scheme for that concert.
There were hundreds and hundreds of lights,
all of which were trained on Travis,
no matter where he was on the stage.
Travis did everything the police asked
of him, even though it was indirectly,
but he did everything that was asked of him,
and he closed the show exactly
when they told him to do it.
We know that there are hundreds
of civil lawsuits that have
been filed against Travis Scott.
One of those, the attorney
involved in a civil lawsuit,
did respond today.
Bob Hilliard, an attorney
representing Ezra Blount's family,
said that there was a clear culpability
and gross negligent conduct committed,
though he found today disappointing.
Once a Harris County jury is given
an opportunity to see the evidence,
they may be very well return a record
Texas verdict against those defendants.
But again, Scott attorney said his client
feels a very relief with today's verdict.
And of course they offer their
condolences to the families
involved in that terrible tragedy.
Reporting live Anaeli Ruiz K2 you 11 news.
All right Anaeli thank you on k2you.com.
You can read more on this investigation
and about the 10 lives that were lost.