Police say one person is dead and two are fighting for their lives after unfounded fears of a shooting led to a stampede at the end of a rap concert in upstate New York.
Unfounded fears of a shooting at a rap concert in Rochester, New York, sent a crowd rushing for the exits in a stampede that killed one person and left two others fighting for their lives, authorities said.
Memphis rap stars GloRilla and Finesse2tymes finished performing Sunday night at Rochester’s Main Street Armory as people left the venue just after 11 p.m. have begun to rise dangerously high, Police Chief David M. Smith said at a briefing Monday.
“We have no evidence of shots being fired or anyone being shot or stabbed at the scene,” Smith said.
Officers got inside and found three women seriously injured. One, 33, died in hospital. Two others were in critical condition Monday, police said. Seven other people were treated at local hospitals for non-life-threatening injuries.
“What started as a night of live music and entertainment for GloRilla artists last night ended in tragedy with one person dead and two others fighting for their lives,” the boss said.
While there is no evidence of a shooting, Smith said, police are investigating several possible causes for the spike in fatalities, including “possible crowd size, gunshots, pepper spray and other contributing factors.
Mayor Malik Evans described the fatal stampede as “completely unacceptable” and promised a thorough investigation into whether venue operators had put the necessary safety measures in place for the large crowd.
“We’re going to hold people accountable for what happened last night, period,” Evans said, though he cautioned that it’s too soon to assign blame. “I intend to get to the bottom of it.
Emails seeking comment were sent to the armory on Monday.
GloRilla, whose 2022 song “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)’ featuring Hitkid was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Performance and tweeted that she’s “praying everyone is OK”.
Deadly crowd surges have been a recurring disaster at concerts and other major events in the US and around the world, including a 2021 concert by rapper Travis Scott that killed 10 people.
Built between 1905 and 1907 and initially used by the US military, the Rochester Armory hosted sporting events throughout the 20th century before being closed for several years beginning in the late 1990s, in part because it lacked a fire protection system at the time.
After extensive renovations, it reopened and started hosting concerts and other events in 2005. Its main arena is expected to hold around 5,000 people, Smith said. The city’s fire department will work with police to determine if that capacity was exceeded Sunday, he said.
Mayor Evans said it was too early to say whether another scheduled performance at the venue, Saturday’s performance by rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, would be allowed.
“If you go to a concert, you don’t expect to get trampled,” Evans said. “Your loved ones expect you to be able to come home and talk about the experience you had at that great concert.”
