During a press conference, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner addresses the report saying that the crowd was sent into panic after someone allegedly injected festivalgoers with some drugs.

• Nov 8, 2021

AceShowbiz - Police are taking into consideration a swirling report which says that someone injected drugs to Astroworld Festival concertgoers. Following the tragedy at the Friday night, November 5 show, there has been a claim that a would-be culprit injected folks with a syringe, causing panic instead of surge.

During a press conference on Saturday, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner confirmed that at least one person fell unconscious after seemingly having been injected with drug. "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," the police chief continued. "He was revived, and the medical staff did notice notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if somebody was trying to inject."

Finner, however, implored everyone to refrain from making assumptions out of respect of the victims' families. "A lot of narratives out there right now, on social media and even last night," he noted. "I think that all of us need to be respectful of the families and make sure we follow the facts and the evidence."

He later assured that police are investigating the report of possible drug injection at the festival as stating, "And that's what we're trying to do here in the Houston Police Department … This is now a criminal investigation that's going to involve our homicide division as well as narcotics."

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Finner visited Travis Scott (II) in his trailer to warn him of the dangers of continuing with the show ahead of his set at the Astroworld Festival. Fire Chief Samuel Pena went on insinuating that the rapper was responsible for the chaos as he refused to pause the show.

"The one person who can really call for and get a tactical pause when something goes wrong is that performer. They have that bully pulpit and they have a responsibility," Pena told the news outlet in a telephone interview on Sunday. "If somebody would have said, 'Hey, shut this thing down and turn on the lights until this thing gets corrected' - and that coming from the person with the mic - I think could have been very helpful."

Finner declined to confirm whether the private conversation took place, pending investigations.

Eight people were killed at the Astroworld Festival and many others were injured. In a statement released on Twitter in the wake of the tragedy, Scott said, "I'm honestly just devastated and I could never imagine anything like this happening. We're actually working right now to identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time... I could just never understand the severity of the situation."