A crowd surge at the sold-out Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas, that left eight people dead and dozens injured Friday night may have been the result of someone surreptitiously injecting people with drugs.
“One of the narratives was that some individual was injecting other people with drugs,” Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said at a Saturday afternoon news conference addressing the tragic events of the NRG Park concert attended by 50,000 people.
“We do have a report of a security officer, according to the medical staff that was out and treated him last night, that he was reaching over to restrain or grab a citizen, and he felt a prick in his neck,” Finner said.
“When he was examined — he went unconscious — they administered Narcan,” he said. “He was revived, and the medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if somebody’s trying to inject.”
Narcan is a drug used to revive people who have overdosed on opioids.
Police have not yet interviewed the guard, Finner said.
Officials said medical staff indicated there were “several” incidents of Narcan being administered at the concert, but they did not have an exact account, according to NBC affiliate KXAN out of Austin, Texas.
“This was a targeted attack on innocent people, including a child,” a source close to concert organizers, according to the New York Post, told the newspaper. “People were being spiked against their own will.”
Those killed at the concert ranged in age from 14 to 27.
Autopsy results from the medical examiner will provide more information, according to the New York Post story. That account also said needle-jabbing attacks have been a problem recently reported in some clubs in the United Kingdom
Videos shot from the concert show fans desperately trying to get the concert to stop to help those who had been trampled.
One video shows a young woman climbing a ladder to get the attention of a camera operator, repeatedly shouting, “There is somebody dying!”
this hurts to watch… It makes me sick to my stomach. Travis Scott is SICK pic.twitter.com/CgaAPHapBT
— Barb Status (@barb_status) November 6, 2021
Another video appears to show concert performer Travis Scott reacting to the situation by calling for help from medical personnel.
— cherliess (@CherlyBonilla) November 6, 2021
“This is now a criminal investigation that’s going to involve our homicide division, as well as narcotics,” Finner said. “And we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
Saturday’s performance of the two-day concert was canceled.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.