Global Citizen, an annual music festival, came to Central Park for its sixth year in late September.
The festival included performers such as Cardi B, Janet Jackson, The Weekend, Shawn Mendes, and more. The hosts of the festival were Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness. While the festival was about music, it also included conversation about social justice movements and the necessary step to end poverty. These important issues were discussed by Jackman and Furness on the stage. The entire event was also live streamed on NBC.
Adama Ahmed, a junior at Irvington High School who attended the festival said, “[The festival] started out as a lot of fun. There were lots of great artists like Shawn Mendes and Cardi B. My friends and I were having the time of our lives.”
The festival took a turn for the worse at around 7:30. After Cardi B performed, there were reportedly loud popping noises that sounded like gunshots and the audience was told to scatter by the NYPD.
“All of a sudden everyone starts running. I get up as fast as I can and I start bolting. I left all of my friends behind. Everyone’s like ‘oh my god I heard gunshots’, so I’m running and I’m running,” said Ahmed.
“I didn’t hear anything, I just saw tons of people running and ducking. I just kept thinking I’m too young to die,” said Amelie Chusko, another IHS junior.
“We heard a ton of people screaming and saw tons of people sprinting towards us. My friends and I had no idea what was happening. We asked some of the people who were running next to us. They said that shots had been fired into the crowd. This is when we really started to panic. We really thought we were running for our lives,” said freshman Lexy Downs
Attendees of the festival took drastic measures to escape Central Park, which included climbing fences and trampling others. According to Ahmed, “These people starting lifting each other up over fences. I didn’t know people could come together like this at a time of crisis.”
Later into the night, a statement was issued by the NYPD News account on Twitter stating that there were no shots fired. The NYPD revealed the sound that had frightened festival goers was a fallen barrier. The Global Citizen organization later retweeted the statement and on Twitter and announced that the show was going to continue. The Global Citizen Team issued an apology stating, “To those who were injured or frightened by this experience, we sincerely apologize.”
Andrew Kirk, the Global Director of public relations also commented on the issue in an email to the Paw Print. “This was a scary incident and we were all frightened when we thought the Park was not safe. Our number one priority at all of our events is the safety of our Global Citizens, staff, artists, and partners. We are very sorry that people did not feel safe.”
Not long after the incident that had scared tens of thousands, Janet Jackson took the stage and the show continued. Downs shared that “Later we found out that it wasn’t a shooter. The concert was still going on after, but my friends and I were shaken up so we just went home.”
