A second musician killed after a crowd outburst at a packed hip-hop concert in Rochester, New York, has been identified.
Police on Tuesday identified the second victim as Brandi Miller, 35, of Rochester. Authorities said Monday that Rhodesia Belton, 33, of Buffalo, New York, died at a hospital.
The Rochester Police Department said in its update Tuesday that a third concertgoer, who suffered life-threatening injuries, remained in a hospital in critical condition. She was described as a 35-year-old woman.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said Belton was a city employee who was hired only last year and worked for the City of Buffalo Traffic Violations Agency.
“He tragically died yesterday while attending a concert in Rochester,” he said. do Sharing a picture of Belton. “Her family, friends and colleagues are devastated and left to mourn this tragic loss. Please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers.”
Police said seven other people suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Rochester police said fans were leaving Glorilla’s show at the Main Street Armory shortly after 11 p.m. Sunday when they heard gunshots, apparently causing panic.
Police Chief David M. Smith said Monday, “The crowd began to grow and began running toward the exits.”
The police department said in a statement that no evidence of gunfire or other violence was found, but Smith said the claims were being investigated. He said officials are also looking into the size of the crowd and the possibility that the pepper spray may have increased the crowd.
Police said investigators are hopeful that photos and videos from concert-goers can help them determine what happened.
Smith said the crowd was still pouring out, so the officers had to demonstrate outside. “They remained there until they were finally able to make their way inside,” he said at the news conference.
The police statement said that once they were inside, they found three women “with serious injuries”.
“As the night wore on, an additional seven people arrived at local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries from the incident,” police said.
The venue passed a fire inspection in December, Rochester’s NBC affiliate WHEC reported Monday. The Main Street Armory states on its website that it has a capacity of 5,000.
An organization listed as a promoter of the concert did not respond to requests for comment.
Glorilla, whose real name is Gloria Hallelujah Woods and whose 2022 song “FNF (Let’s Go)” with Hitkid was nominated for a Grammy for best rap performance, tweeted just before 12:15 a.m. Monday that she was “hearing about what just happened”
“It’s okay for everyone to pray,” she said.
on monday he Tweeted“I am devastated and heartbroken by the tragic deaths following Sunday’s show. My fans mean the world to me.”
Glorilla was one of several artists to perform at the recent Grammy Awards Hip-Hop 50th Anniversary Tribute, which featured a star-studded lineup including Missy Elliott, Ice-T, Busta Rhymes, Public Enemy, Nelly, Queen Latifah and Run- Was. dmc
Sunday night’s incident is the latest crowd fatality at a concert in the US. In 2021, a massive crowd at a show by rapper Travis Scott killed 10 people.
Crowd expert Paul Wertheimer has stated that incidents in which people are killed or injured by the collective force of concert-goers have some elements in common: free-roaming festival seating, triggers such as gunfire or countdown, poor planning and poor crowd-flow management.
He said preliminary reports often label incidents as stampedes, but they are almost always cases of people being crushed as they stand because too many people are not in enough space. Concert goers go down, he said, in what he calls “the collapse of the crowd.”