‘Stop the show!’: Video captures Travis Scott fan pleading with Astroworld cameraman
Distressing video shows a Travis Scott fan desperately shouting “Stop the show!” at a cameraman during the deadly stampede at the Astroworld Festival — but the operator ignores his pleas and yells at him to get off the platform.
Ayden Cruz, 18, a varsity basketball player at Heights High School, attended the ill-fated Scott concert with his girlfriend and a group that included Brianna Rodriguez, 16, one of the eight people killed in the crush of fans at Houston’s NRG Park on Friday, KHOU reported.
In the viral clip, Cruz is seen climbing on a ladder to reach the cameraman atop a platform to plead with him to stop the performance.
“Stop the show!” he yells repeatedly as the crew member waves him off, the footage aired by KHOU shows.
“Everything feels like it’s not real,” Cruz, who had been to the two previous Astroworld shows in Houston, told the news outlet, adding that he thought he had a good safety plan prepared for the event.
“I love music. I love going to concerts. I know the energy. I know the vibes and this shouldn’t have happened,” the student told KHOU. “I tried my best to avoid all danger zones. I thought I had it all down.”
Cruz said he and his pals were near the back of the crowd when he suddenly felt the force of the surging crowd pushing them to the ground.
“It really wasn’t a mosh pit where we were. We were actually towards the back,” he told the station. “And all of a sudden, people start pushing us from the back and we’re not actually able to open up anything. There was no space. People were actually freaking out. There was a girl behind us who was frantically screaming.”
He described the moment he got really scared when no one could move in the mass of humanity.
“At that point, fear has hit already my heart,” Cruz said. “It took me a long time to get out before I could even get to the cameraman.”
He continued: “And as the people, the first layer of people, fell down … we ended up falling down on our backs and people ended up falling on top of us. I couldn’t get up for the longest. No one really could get up. There was no one moving. The music was going and people were jumping and dancing.”
Cruz also described the moment his girlfriend fell to the ground.
“She was enjoying herself the entire festival up until that moment. She talked about how excited she was to see Drake. I heard her. I heard her asking for help and saying that she can’t breathe,” he told KHOU, adding that he was unable to help her and thought he was about to die in the chaos.
He said someone then picked his girlfriend up and carried her to another area of NRG Park, where she later asked him if he had seen their friends, including Rodriguez.
The teen said he wanted to go search for them amid the pandemonium, but that there was no time.
“There’s, like, time is ticking. Any decision I make is very critical. And so, I think the best way that we can save them is by making the show, like, come to an end, or stopping it,” he told the outlet.
Cruz said that when he spotted the cameraman, he decided to jump onto the platform and plead for him to stop the show.
However, he said he doesn’t blame the man for ignoring him because was just doing his job.
“I just felt like no one else was going to do it, and it would save Bri and it would save those people that were beneath my feet,” said Cruz, who was joined on the platform by a woman who also is seen yelling at the cameraman.
“Man, to have someone by your side, that’s exactly what we need. We need people to help each other,” he told KHOU.
Cruz said he has previously suffered from depression and talked to a therapist on Tuesday.
“I’m getting comments saying I’m a hero,” he said. “I lost my friend. Like, she’s not here with us right now.”
