UPDATE: In an official statement, Mayor Mark Stodola said that he asked the promoters and the venue to cancel the concert. He did not specify who cancelled the concert.
ORIGINAL: A Moneybagg Yo concert scheduled for Friday the 13th has been cancelled amid growing concerns over the safety of the show by the City of Little Rock.
According to an email from the City of Little Rock, the show was canceled shortly after they scheduled a special meeting to discuss the show. It is unclear who cancelled the concert, but the decision comes after a letter from Chief Kenton Buckner made the rounds on social media.
In the letter to Richard J. Bressler, President of iHeartMedia, Buckner details violence at Moneybagg Yo's past shows including an incident where a man was shot and killed at a Mississippi concert. Buckner also claimed that "[LRPD's] intelligence" indicated that a vehicle Moneybagg was inside of was shot at in New Jersey because "he did not pay a protection fee to the Sex Money Murder Bloods gang."
Buckner then offered Bressler a discussion over the security measures that were being implemented for the event. The police chief said that 10 off-duty officers were asked to work the event as security, which he considered "wholly inadequate."
Little Rock u Ready for Friday ????
— BreadGangBagg (@MoneyBaggYo) October 11, 2017
"We would therefore ask that we be allowed input in the number of officers to assure the safety of the concert patrons and the officers," Buckner said in the letter.
Then on Thursday night, a 9:00 p.m. special meeting was called by the Little Rock Board of Directors to discuss the Moneybagg Yo concert. The concert was soon after cancelled, which prompted the cancellation of the special meeting.
Below is Mark Stodola's full statement:
"Late this afternoon I, along with members of the Board of Directors, learned of a planned concert featuring a performer with a history of violent incidents at two concerts in the past year as well as a shooting in August of this year that targeted the van in which the performer was riding. While the Little Rock Police Department had obtained intelligence and had been working to increase security, it was my opinion that the concert should not be held. There was no way to guarantee the safety of the audience, to effectively guarantee safety in the large parking lots of the Metroplex and with the State Fair beginning it made no sense to pull police resources from other areas of the city. I began in earnest exploring options for cancelling the concert. These included contacting the promoters and venue and urging them to cancel the concert as well as calling a special Board of Directors meeting for tonight to explore the pursuit of an injunction halting the concert. We have made strides in calming the recent uptick in violent crime in the city and putting this event on, considering the propensity of the performer's past concerts prompting violence, defies all logic. Our law enforcement officers are already doing so much. Since my discussions with the sponsors of the concert, I have learned that the concert has been cancelled and the special meeting is no longer necessary. As public officials, our most important duty is public safety. Public safety will continue to be our top priority for all our citizens as we work together to ensure to the best of our ability the safety of our people."
More updates are to come.