Tianna Purtue, the mother of Drakeo the Ruler’s five-year-old son Caiden Caldwell, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Live Nation on the minor’s behalf, Pitchfork reports. The suit arrives less than a week after the late rapper’s family announced plans for a similar suit against the promoter.
The suit alleges Live Nation was “completely knowledgeable of the potential dangers posed to both their guests and the performers they hired based on numerous past incidents of violence and death at their hip hop events.” According to Rolling Stone, the lawsuit is asking for $60 million in damages.
Drakeo was stabbed backstage during the Once Upon a Time festival concert at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles. He was taken to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead. His mother Darrylene Corniel spoke with Rolling Stone about her son’s death and said that Drakeo and his brother Ralfy the Plug were “swamped” by “like 40 to 60 people” around the same time that YG arrived. “Everything just happened so quickly,” she said. “They started trying to jump them.”
While the lawsuit asserts “there is no evidence to indicate that YG had anything to do with the events,” it suggests that promoters “should have known” about Drakeo’s “very public feud” with gang members. Even though the suit claims Drakeo was “not and never has been a member of any gang,” he was “constantly being challenged by various gangs for his refusal to ‘choose’ a side.” The late rapper was also receiving pushback from members of the Bloods who were looking to “exact ‘street justice” after he was acquitted for the murder of someone associated with the group, the suit alleges.
The suit implies Drakeo’s death was gang-related by claiming that at the height of the altercation, he was attacked by a group “dressed in all red and wearing ski masks.”
Live Nation, along with C3 Presents, Bobby Dee Presents, Los Angeles Football Club, and Jeff Shuman, are accused of putting profits before the safety of the artists and its guests. The suit claims that an “adequate security plan and sufficient security guards and law enforcement presence” could have “prevented the unnecessary and untimely murder of Drakeo the Ruler at the hands of over 100 deadly gang members who inexplicably gained access to a restricted area of the venue engaging in an unrelenting and unprevented attack for over 10 minutes.”
