Why did public officials defer to Travis Scott's sovereignty while people died?
Our view: Travis Scott's Astroworld event was an unfolding disaster on public property, where police and fire officials must have the power to shut things down.
Whatever findings or even criminal charges flow from the Houston police investigation into the tragedy that left ten people dead at rapper Travis Scott's Nov. 5 concert, two questions cry out for answers.
How much authority over the event did the city and Harris County cede to the performer and concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment?
And who was making decisions about whether the show should be stopped when people started dying?
A review of Houston Fire Department logs by USA TODAY reporter Rick Jervis showed that even before Scott took the stage at 9:15 p.m. — in a temporary venue erected on parking lots of the county's sprawling NRG sports and entertainment complex — hundreds of concertgoers had already been treated for injuries from crowds surging past barricades.