At Least 4 of the 8 Astroworld Victims Are Latino, Here Are Their Names
Photos via Facebook
By now, it’s likely that you’ve heard of the mass casualty event that happened on Friday at Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival in Houston. After a large crowd surged towards the stage while Travis Scott was performing, at least eight people were killed. Dozens more were injured.
As of now, eight of the victims have been identified and at least four of them are Latino.
One of them, Axel Acosta, had family members searching for him days after he initially went missing. Acosta was a 21-year-old college student from Washington who attended Western Washington University and was studying computer science. According to his family members, he wasn’t a frequent concert-goer and Astroworld was the first time he attended an event of its nature.
According to the GoFundMe page that his family set up in the wake of the tragic event, Acosta’s family lost contact with him around 5:00 p.m. on Friday. “His phone was found in the lost and found at the concert and he hasn’t checked back into his hotel room,” wrote Cynthia Acosta on the fundraising page. “We have been making calls non stop to figure out where he might have been.”
Acosta’s family set up the GoFundMe page both to raise money for a last-minute flight from Washington to Texas and in the chance that funeral expenses were needed. Unfortunately, the worst came to pass. On Facebook, Acosta’s brother Joel confirmed that Axel was one of the eight people who tragically died on Friday. “He is in a better place and I hope he knows we all loved him with all of our hearts,” wrote his brother.
Eight others — all under the age of 30 — died from being crushed by the crowd.
Below are the seven other victims of the mass casualty event at Astroworld on Friday.
Franco Patino, 21.
Franco Patino was a student at the University of Dayton from Naperville, Illinois. He was a mechanical engineering student and a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.
John Hilgert, 14.
At 14 years old, John Hilgert was the youngest victim to die at Astroworld. A freshman at Memorial High School in Houston, Hilgert was a baseball player.
Brianna Rodriguez, 16.
Dancer Brianna Rodriguez was a junior at Heights High School in Houston, Texas. “Dancing was her passion and now she’s dancing her way to heaven’s pearly gates,” said her family in a statement.
Rudy Peña, 23.
Rodolfo “Rudy” Peña was a Laredo College student who was studying criminology. He was the youngest of five children, and according to his sister, the “favorite” of the family. “He was the sweetest person. He was responsible. He was there for everybody. He loved to be close to his friends and family. He helped a lot. He was always smiling,” she said in a statement to Rolling Stone.
Danish Baig, 27.
Mirza Danish Baig, along with his fiancée, Olivia Swingle, was a district manager at AT&T. According to his brother, Ammar Baig, he died trying to save his fiancée from being crushed by the crowd. “People started hitting them, people started hitting his fiancée, started [doing] a lot of things to her,” Ammar told People. “She’s bruised up, and he was trying to save her and no one there was there to help him.”
Jacob E. Jurinek, 20.
Jurinek was a junior at Southern Illinois University studying art and media. After losing his mother when he was 10-years-old, he and his father were “inseparable.” “We are all devastated and are left with a huge hole in our lives,” his father, Ron Jurinek, said in a statement. “Right now, we ask for the time and space for our family to process this tragic news and begin to heal.”
Madison Dubiski, 23.
Dubiski was a former University of Mississippi student who worked in advertising and marketing. She was a successful cheerleader throughout her life, and was described by a former classmate as being “best friends” with her mom. Her family has not made a statement yet.
No one else has been reported missing to date.
Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, says he is doing everything in his power to figure out how exactly a music festival could have turned so deadly so quickly.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” Turner said in a statement. “Over the next several days, several weeks, could be even longer, we’ll take an in-depth look at everything that took place, why it took place, what steps we can do moving forward to mitigate an incident of this kind from taking place.”
