Astroworld: What I Would be Doing

I’ve had a few people reach out to me over the past few days about the tragedy at the Astroworld Festival. “Where are the feds?” “What would you be doing if you were still the US Attorney?” “I heard the police chief is friends with Travis Scott, where are the Rangers?” etc.

I have been to my share of homicide scenes, drunk driving fatality crashes, and mass causality events – most notably the Santa Fe High School shooting. I stood in that art classroom and heard the cell phones in backpacks buzzing and ringing from friends and family looking for loved ones. I know what it looks like to investigate something of this scale, what the processes are, and who the players are.

First, this investigation will take a long time and the parties on the defensive side need to find good lawyers quickly if they haven’t already. Because unlike a school shooting where the defensive parties are primarily government entities, here you have private companies with perceived deep pockets for civil liability. Everyone is going to get sued in this case and dragged into it somehow. Add the simultaneous civil litigation with an already announced homicide and narcotics investigations and lawyers on both sides with have complicated discovery issues and potentially cause initial admissions and statements in the civil context more costly in the criminal investigation.

To the point I’ve been asked about the Chief knowing Travis Scott, that will probably keep coming up until that issue is addressed. I know and like Chief Finner. He’s a good guy and the right guy to be chief of police, but as I learned from my time on the bench, it’s the appearance of conflict that can often be worse than a real conflict. Depending on what is learned in the next day or so regarding the staffing of the police, on and off duty officers at the scene and how they interfaced with the concert organizers, I’d expect more calls for the Rangers or FBI to take over the investigation. But regarding the FBI, I don’t see a clear federal issue right now other than the allegation that someone got pricked with a needle that may have had a narcotic in it. Other than some OSHA investigative priorities – which can be criminal in nature - at this time I’m not aware of any employees who were hurt or injured, but that could change. I’ll stress the wild card is the narcotics angle. There is arguably federal jurisdiction there and the DEA should be involved at this stage. If anyone had certain weapons, ATF could easily have a jurisdictional claim.

If called in. the Rangers can handle an investigation like this and have handled large mass causality investigations before. I’ve worked with many Rangers over the years, and they are a very professional outfit and more than capable. Often the cry to bring the Rangers into an investigation is tarnished with some political side issue, but in this situation, it could be the most prudent thing to do.

Finally, to the question if I were US Attorney what would I do? I’d get the DEA and FBI involved now and push hard OSHA’s involvement. DEA and FBI have tremendous resources they can bring to the table – something that is likely already informally happening. I would want them briefed up and involved so that if something takes a turn where HPD bows out, there is little to no gap in knowledge and investigation. Same goes for the Rangers. Additionally, the long arm of federal law will more easily be able to subpoena and search the records of out of state corporate entities or targets that leave Texas. The defendants in this case needs to treat this more like a criminal investigation rather than a civil one. Lawyers are already having press conferences and filing motions. The news cycle will spin much faster than the wheels of justice.