DENVER — A Denver Police sergeant insisted that injuries to concertgoers were “very minor,” and a city leader joked about concertgoers wearing helmets after a hailstorm pelted thousands of people gathered for a Louis Tomlinson concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater in June, requiring medics to treat more than a hundred people.
The text messages were part of a public records request issued by 9NEWS in the days after the storm. Denver Arts and Venues, which operates the amphitheater, refused to release the records, claiming the city doesn’t maintain public records on employee’s private cell phones. 9NEWS challenged that decision in court.
In October, a judge ruled the text messages were subject to public records laws and that the messages were wrongfully withheld, ordering their release.
On the night of the concert, Red Rocks Venue Director Tad Bowman texted his boss, then-Denver Arts and Venues director Ginger White-Brunetti. Bowman wasn’t at the venue but told White-Brunetti he was playing baseball and was concerned about the lighting.
“I was catching so I started telling the umpire I’m afraid of lightning,” Bowman wrote. “We played two more outs and then left the field – I immediately got into the car.”
Bowman tells White-Brunetti that on-site city staff reported Red Rocks was in a delay but didn’t get rain. Moments later, Bowman texted his boss urgently saying a very bad storm was heading towards Red Rocks, and that the venue was considering cancelling the show.
The messages also include an exchange between Denver Police Sargeant Todd Erickson and Bowman during the storm. At 9:40 p.m. that night, Erickson texted Bowman a picture of the police room door with a tall pile of hail outside the door.
“Some patients have welts on their shoulders and back,” Erickson writes to Bowman. “Guess next time they tell them to seek shelter they will go to car.”
Kaiya Olsen, who attended the show and ended the night with a broken pinky and a dinged-up car, said warnings about the weather were confusing. She pointed to a photo of a sign that only told patrons, “You can seek shelter in your vehicle and return when the show resume.”
“There was no way to know that there was hail coming down from the warnings that we received,” Olsen said. “Additionally, if you've been to Red Rocks, the walk back down to your car is so lengthy.”
Olsen and her friends sought shelter in the medic room at the amphitheater.
“That was the only place that we could find shelter. There was nowhere else to go,” Olsen said.
That night, Erickson texted Bowman from the medic room.
“We are helping medics. So you know… these injuries are very minor,” he wrote. “Why 25 of them are in the medic office I am not sure? Nothing to be done for them.”
Olsen, who shared video from that night showing a police officer sitting in the medic room eating dinner, said plenty of people were pretty seriously injured in that room.
“There were girls with bleeding heads,” she said. “People were having panic attacks in the medic room because it was just a really scary situation.”
Erickson also sent several messages questioning West Metro Fire’s decision to declare the hailstorm a mass casualty incident.
“I asked West Metro what they meant?” he wrote. “Cause in the cops eyes that means death and serious bodily injury?”
Erickson told Bowman that West Metro considers a mass casualty event when they have to call five or more ambulances.
“I wouldn’t have called a medic on the street for them in the condition they were in,” Erickson wrote.
Reports said Stadium Medical treated more than 100 people at the amphitheater that night. Seven of them were taken to the hospital for treatment.
The next morning, White-Brunetti texted the whole team an image of a New York Times Instagram post about the storm.
“I think we should expect some fallout especially from those who are injured,” White-Brunetti wrote. “Do we need to huddle this AM to discuss?”
Later that morning, Red Rocks released a statement on social media acknowledging the injuries, saying they would “have a conversation with Mother Nature.” Many who had been injured the night before criticized that message.
The same night, Red Rocks hosted another concert featuring the band Shaky Graves.
In a text thread between leadership of Denver Arts and Venues around 6:15 p.m., spokesman Brian Kitts shared that 1,500 fans have been scanned into the venue.
“Are they wearing helmets?” Arts and Venues deputy director Molly Wink wrote. “Too soon?”
Other users on the thread react to the message with a “Ha Ha.”
Olsen isn’t laughing.
“I don't think they took it seriously enough,” she said. “I think if they were going to continue to postpone the show as much as they did, they should have just outright canceled it.”
“I just hope that they do better and pay attention to the weather and do their jobs because I feel like they didn't do their jobs that night,” Olsen said.
In a statement on the release of the messages, Red Rocks spokesman Brian Kitts said a review of texts “showed personnel and local departments and agencies doing their best to manage a turbulent and quickly developing weather event.”
Kitts said the venue will be implementing new communications with fans about severe weather threat in the 2024 season.
Have a tip for 9NEWS Consumer Investigator Steve Staeger? E-mail Steve@9news.com.
Hail at Red Rocks
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