- On the evening of November 5th,
tens of thousands of people in NRG Park in Houston,
waited in anticipation of rapper Travis Scott's performance.
- Let's go! Yeah!
- But revelry quickly turned to tragedy.
10 people died, and dozens were injured.
To illuminate what happened amid the crowd, "The Washington Post"
gathered dozens of videos from that night
and examined them to determine where and when each was taken.
We interviewed witnesses -- -Got sucked into
this black hole, basically.
- And we had experts analyze the movements of the crowd
and its density in key areas.
"The Post" investigation found that at least seven of those
who later died were located in one area of the audience.
Three of those victims can be seen unconscious
amid a pile of fans on the ground,
about 16 minutes into the show,
which continued for nearly an hour.
The review also reveals that minutes into Scott's show,
that same section had pockets of extremely high density,
according to a crowd analysis done for "The Post" --
a circumstance that three experts
said increased the risk of a dangerous crowd collapse.
Three crowd-science experts told "The Post"
that a surge toward the main stage
would have compressed people into this area
that had rigid metal barriers on three sides
and left little way for them to escape the building pressure.
A criminal investigation is ongoing,
and the causes of deaths have not been made public.
But "The Post's" reconstruction,
which includes exclusively obtained videos,
shows how one section of the audience
became an epicenter of chaos.
- Help!
Help! Please help!
- Fans arrive at NRG Park in the early morning on Friday,
long before the gates open.
Over the next few hours, while some shop, eat,
and attend daytime concerts,
videos show instances of scattered mayhem.
Fans break perimeter fences, rush entrances,
and storm security checkpoints.
The festival is a sprawling site with a main stage
where Scott will perform in the evening
and a secondary stage for the day's other performances.
The audience section at the main stage
covers roughly the area of three football fields.
Metal barriers divide a smaller section,
close to the stage, into quadrants to the north,
south, east, and west, creating pathways
used by security and medical personnel
to move through the crowd.
Throughout the day, devoted Scott fans
stake out their spots around the main stage.
By 6:00, attendees are filling the area,
with Scott's performance still three hours away.
- Around 7:00 was when obviously everyone was there.
Like thousands of people were there.
I was already getting really pushed against the barricade.
- The show at the secondary stage, by singer SZA,
wraps up at about 8:30, and a flood of festival-goers
moves from there toward the main stage's south quadrant,
according to witnesses.
A concert-goer described getting caught in the current
flowing toward the main stage,
unable to move in the opposite direction.
- We actually wanted to get out.
Like, the, one of the girls I was with,
she was like, "I don't want to do this.
I want to get out." So we were trying to get out,
but we just kept getting pushed forward and forward.
- As the crowd balloons, a large timer counts
down to the start of the main-stage event.
Scott's show begins around 9:00,
and the crowd erupts in excitement as he enters.
- Let's go!
- As soon as Travis reaches the stage,
there's just a whole different, like, shift into the crowd.
- Video shows the crowd in the south quadrant
swaying at the beginning of the concert.
9-year-old Ezra Blount, an avid Scott fan,
is atop his father's shoulders in a video
that a lawyer for the family confirmed is the boy.
Madison Dubiski, 23, at the show with her brother,
is in the same area,
according to another video obtained by "The Post."
Close by, 27-year-old Danish Baig and his fiancée
try to escape the crowd,
but they fall shortly after the concert begins,
according to a family lawyer.
All three are among the seven concert-goers
who died in the pier in "The Post's" investigation.
The identities and locations of the other victims
were confirmed by relatives or family representatives.
- Once the crowd was moving, you were moving with it.
There was no -- There was --
You were at the mercy of the crowd, pretty much.
There was no way you would have been able to move around
or keep yourself stable.
- Using tracking software,
a physicist analyzed the crowd's movement
in the south quadrant for "The Post"
at about three minutes into Scott's performance.
Over 5 seconds, the trajectory of 12 randomly selected people
is similar -- evidence, he said,
that the people were being pushed in the same direction
by the tide of the crowd,
losing control of independent movement
and not merely moving to the music.
At "The Post's" request,
researchers at Carnegie Mellon University
used a crowd-counting model to estimate the density
in the area where "The Post" examination located victims.
They found that roughly three minutes into the concert,
in some pockets of the area
where the video image was clearest,
the density reached as high as 1.
85 square feet per person.
The researchers noted that the actual density for the section
was likely higher than their estimate,
because the image from the scene was taken at night
with low resolution and showed smoke from fireworks,
making some people difficult to detect.
A density of 1.
5 square feet per person can cause compressive asphyxiation,
with so little space that people cannot draw breath,
according to the crowd experts.
One calls it a crushing point.
- I was like, man, this is like, this is not safe.
Like, I started to notice, I look in front of me,
I see people, uh, crying.
I look in the side of me, I see my friends,
they're yelling for help,
they're, they're saying, "We gotta get out."
- About five minutes into the show,
a video exclusively obtained by "The Post" shows desperation
in the area immediately adjacent to Ezra Blount,
in the south quadrant.
- She can't breathe! She can't breathe!
- Around the same time, people shout for help nearby.
- Help!
Help! Please!
- Help! - 23-year-old college student
Rudy Peña, another of those who died,
is seen wedged among people who are fighting for space,
according to his family's lawyer.
- People started trying to hop over that security fence
and people pinned up against it.
You could see the panic and fear in their eyes.
These fenced-off corralled areas,
they allowed nowhere to escape.
It was one way in, one way out.
- As people in the crowd tried to get out,
others fall on top of each other,
similar to a scene one witness describes.
- And, you know, we all got sucked into this black hole.
Basically, you know, it's kind of like
pulling the plug on the bathtub, everyone just gets sucked in.
- A phenomenon known as crowd collapse,
when high density and other factors
can cause people to fall on top of each other,
is clearly evident at about 9:12 PM, two experts said.
Video filmed around 16 minutes into the concert,
which "The Post" is not displaying
because of its graphic nature,
shows what appears to be several unconscious people
lying atop each other.
Among them is 21-year-old engineering
and computer-science student Axel Acosta,
one of the deceased.
Best friends and college students,
20-year-old Jacob Jurinek and 21-year-old Franco Patino,
are both visible in the same video and died that night.
At 9:18, a Houston firefighter outside the venue,
but monitoring radio communication channels
used inside the festival, notes a "report of individual
with crush injury, breathing difficulty."
Flare-ups in more areas of the venue
become evident in the next several minutes.
But other concertgoers
are unaware of any life-threatening distress.
- People obviously were like, um, like pushing and stuff,
but no one was on the ground in the area I was at.
We didn't hear anyone saying like, "Stop this show."
We didn't hear anyone say, "Oh, people are getting hurt."
At around 9:28, video shows other people are on the ground
in the south quadrant, pleading for help,
and dialing 911.
- Help! Help!
- People were literally on the floor
getting their faces stomped in.
We were just trying to pull kids over that barricade.
- Around a half-hour into the performance,
fans continue to try and summon help.
A man from the crowd attempts to scale a platform
to reach camera operators to stop the show.
- Shut the f-- up.
Someone's in there. People are f--ing dying.
I want to save somebody's life.
- The Houston firefighter's log notes at 9:30
that police are reporting "multiple people trampled,
passed out at front of stage."
At that point, an emergency vehicle with flashing lights
tries to make its way through the crowd in the east.
- What the f-- is that?
If everybody good, put a middle finger up in the sky.
Okay, oh, my God, man.
Come on.
- At 9:39, with the concert continuing,
Houston Fire makes the first call captured
in a public communications channel for backup.
- Special events, stand by.
Ambulance 33, Ambulance 37, Ambulance 46.
- These paramedics, they were battling
to try to fight their way through
to get the people that were in the crowd,
as well as trying to have people pass bodies
over that fence in that walkway.
- Scott pauses midsong at around 9:42
and asks security to help a person passed out
near the front of the main stage.
- Somebody jump in. Come on, come on, security.
Let's get in there, let's get in there,
let's get in there, let's get in there.
- Security and Houston Police carry the man out of the crowd.
Meanwhile festivalgoers in the south quadrant wave
their arms and chant in unison for an end to the concert.
- Stop the show! Stop the show!
- At 9:43, a photo shows Rudy Peña,
the college student seen earlier,
removed from the crowd and receiving medical attention.
His attorney told "The Post"
that although the medical examiner
has not yet released a cause of death,
Peña's face was disfigured due to being stepped on.
Around 9:46 in the south quadrant,
medical personnel do chest compressions
on at least two people.
The fire incident commander declares the scene
a mass casualty incident by 9:52 PM,
according to the Houston firefighter's log --
a trigger that doubles
the number of responding firefighters.
Roughly two minutes later,
rapper Drake makes a surprise appearance onstage.
- Oh, Houston!
Oh, Houston! - The show ends around 10:12,
with Scott closing it out, running about 72 minutes in all,
and continuing about 42 minutes after police first reported
that multiple people had been trampled.
- Make it home safe! Good night!
- It's just something that you'll never forget
and something that's truly traumatizing,
knowing that people died that night, uh,
and then knowing that people were asking for my help.
You know, that's just very scary, you know.
I, to this day, I still, I,
their voices don't leave my head.