Travis Scott has been criticised by a lawyer working for one of the victims of last year’s Astroworld tragedy for pausing a show earlier this week after fans climbed up some lighting truss to get a better view of his performance.

The rapper is slowly returning to live shows following the crowd surge that killed ten people and injured hundreds more during his headline set at last year’s edition of the Astroworld festival he founded.

Playing a set at an event called The Day Party at Coney Island in New York on Monday, Scott paused his performance after spotting some audience members dangerously clinging on to the lighting truss. He then told said audience members that they had to climb down before he’d continue the show, which they did.

You might think that those affected by last year’s Astroworld tragedy would welcome the fact Scott now seems to be more safety conscious at his shows, given the rapper had a history of previously encouraging dangerous behaviour from his fans when performing live. However, a lawyer representing the family of the youngest of those who died at Astroworld – nine year old Ezra Blount – criticised the rapper when commenting on this week’s events to TMZ.

The Blount family are involved in one of the hundreds of lawsuits that have been filed against Scott and Astroworld promoter Live Nation in relation to last year’s tragedy, and they are repped in that litigation by Alex Hilliard.

Regarding what happened at The Day Party this week, Hilliard reckons it just proves that Scott has the power to control and direct his audiences when dangerous incidents occur. And not only that, the lawyer reckons, the rapper has long been aware that he has that power and yet chose not to exercise it during his Astroworld show last November.

Hillard told TMZ: “He knows exactly how to keep his fans safe during a concert, but the problem with that is, he didn’t just learn about the fact that he has control over the entire crowd. There are ten people that would still be alive today, including young Ezra Blount, if Travis realised his responsibility as an artist goes further than just trying to rile up his crowds, and it reemphasises the rule of ‘if you see something say something'”.

Scott insists that he was not aware of the crowd surge that occurred during his Astroworld set last year and, had he been made aware of what was happening within the crowd, he would have stopped the show, instead of continuing to perform for more than half an hour after police had declared a ‘mass casualty event’. His team have also pointed out that Scott did actually pause his Astroworld performance a few times when he became aware of isolated incidents within the crowd, but he remained unaware of the scale of the crowd surge as it was unfolding.

Asked about Hilliard’s comments, a rep for Scott was pretty forthright in their response. They told TMZ: “This is the despicable, cynical height of hypocrisy. It’s beyond disappointing to see that – in a desperate bid to influence potential jurors – plaintiffs’ legal team is criticising Travis for pausing Monday’s Coney Island show to ensure that fans can have fun safely. This is exactly the wrong message to send to fans – and to artists. And it completely ignores the fact that Travis also stopped his performance at Astroworld three different times”.

Asked to respond to that, Hilliard remained equally forthright in his criticism of Scott, stating: “The problem Mr Scott has is, when we call him to the stand to swear him in and cross-examine him, the judge will not allow his paid spokesperson to sit in the witness chair and answer questions for him”.

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