A GloRilla concert Sunday night in Rochester, NY, ended in tragedy when one person was killed and nine others were injured in a crush of people exiting the show.
The fatality was reported to be a 33-year-old woman who was pronounced dead after arrival at Strong Memorial Hospital. Additionally, nine more concertgoers were injured in the melee, including two women in critical condition as of Monday morning. The other seven were reported hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
“The injuries appear to be as a result of a large crowd pushing towards the exits following accounts of individuals hearing what they believed to be gunshots,” said Rochester police lieutenant Nicholas Adams.
The Associated Press and local daily the Democrat & Chronicle reported that when officers got to the concert venue, the Main Street Armory, they found injured people, but none with gunshot or stabbing wounds, contrary to some of the first emergency calls that came in from the scene.
GloRilla tweeted about her concerns shortly after midnight ET, about an hour after the deadly stampede.
“I’m just now hearing about what happened wtf,” she wrote. “Praying everybody is ok,” she added, alongside a series of tears emoji.
Said Rochester mayor Malik Evans said at a news conference, “This is a tragedy of epic proportions. It’s something that all of us who love concerts worry about… When you go to a concert you do not expect to be trampled. Your loved ones expect you to be able to come home and talk about the experience you had at that great concert.”
The mayor added that it was too early to say what precipitated the stampede. “We are going to hold people accountable for what happened last night, period,” Evans said. “I intend to get to the bottom of this.”
Rochester police chief David Smith is asking any patrons with video of the events to come forward to aid in the city’s investigation.
A Facebook post by a woman purporting to have been at the event described a chaotic scene in which she was fearful for her life. “I literally almost died,” she wrote, “I felt all the air leaving my lungs. My whole body hurt. To be screaming for help and have people step on you and climb over you was so fucking scary. I just kept thinking about my kids and how I didn’t want them to grow up without me… Thank you to the man that helped me. He noticed I couldn’t breathe and could barely get a word out and he got my body free and pushed me out.”
Another woman who said she was at the concert tweeted: “I was in the middle of that crowd, but i didn’t hear any gunshots… honestly we were all just walking out after GloRilla performed and then everyone started running outta nowhere it made no sense.”
Fire marshals are said to be looking at whether the concert met regulations, although the marshals conducted an annual inspection in December and found the venue “current and compliant with all fire codes.” The Main Street Armory is a seven-story 1905 building that has an official capacity of 5,000.
The death and injuries occurred as investigations and reverberations still linger over the deaths of 10 concertgoers at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in November 2021.
