Rapper Travis Scott has denied responsibility for deaths at the Astroworld festival in Houston, where 10 people died last month when the crowd surged toward the stage.
The Astroworld concert is among the deadliest live music crowd events in recent American history.
More than 140 lawsuits have been filed so far, including a mass litigation suit brought by more than 1,500 concertgoers. Most of the cases allege the defendants, including Scott, were negligent and stood to gain from continuing the concert despite the crowd control problems. Scott denies the allegations.
In court documents responding to six lawsuits obtained earlier this week by CNN, attorneys for Scott asked for the cases to be dismissed and barred from being brought again. “Defendants generally deny the allegations set forth,” they said.
Families of victims blasted the rapper’s legal filings as “shameful”. Houston attorney James Lassiter told CNN that Scott “continues using social media to present a public image of someone who is grieved by the catastrophic loss of life that his actions caused” while “quietly paying celebrity lawyers to argue his victims deserve nothing more than symbolic help with funeral costs”.
Soon after the tragedy, Scott released a video statement to say he was “honestly just devastated” by the tragedy.
Scott has offered to pay for the funerals of victims of the crowd control disaster. However, at least one family, that of the youngest victim Ezra Blount, nine, declined the offer.
Another Houston attorney, Brent Coons, is demanding Scott pay $10bn to settle litigation from the disaster. The attorney represents 1,547 concertgoers, which the law firm said is the largest suit to date. Lawyers have asked the court to combine cases to make litigation speedier.
“What happened at Astroworld was an unconscionable tragedy and it is important that justice is served for all those impacted,” said Coons.
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