2 Dead, 20 Hospitalized After Mad Decent Block Party

2 Dead, 20 Hospitalized After Mad Decent Block Party

2 Dead, 20 Hospitalized After Mad Decent Block Party

2 Dead, 20 Hospitalized After Mad Decent Block Party

Baltimore’s WMAR reports that two attendees of Mad Decent Block Party at Merriweather Post Pavilion have died from what is believed to be drug-related issues. On Friday night, Tyler Viscardi, 20, was pronounced dead and the same night, a 17-year-old was brought to the hospital suffering from a drug overdose and died on Sunday night. Throughout the concert, which took place all day Friday, police sent 20 people to the hospital (mostly for drug-related problems), issued 50 citations for underage drinking, and made three arrests. Mad Decent, festival organizer Diplo, and Merriweather Post Pavilion operator Seth Hurwitz have all offered statements on the weekend’s events, which you can read below.

Seth Hurwitz:

Our hearts go out to the family as they face the unimaginable. As a parent, it makes me horribly sad beyond words to think of a tragedy like this. We can spend every minute of the day making perfect sense to our children regarding the obvious perils of drugs, but sometimes it is impossible to convince them that this is relevant to their world. Youth feel invulnerable. Some refuse to believe they could be affected.

This drug epidemic is no longer confined to specific demographics, or time of day, or geography, or lifestyle. It’s just everywhere and, and unfortunately, this generation of teens and 20-somethings has not learned this lesson yet. It’s just heartbreaking. This particular type of incident is not the problem of those who should have known better…it’s the problem of those too young to believe it could happen to them. Sadly we find ourselves in the classic position of trying to tell kids not to do something they think is fun.

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