Second Person Dies at Mad Decent Block Party

BY Josiah HughesPublished Aug 4, 2014

This summer's music festival season is bringing with it a wave of casualties. Over the weekend, a young man named Tyler Fox Viscardi passed away from a drug overdose at Mad Decent Block Party's stop in Columbia, MD. Now, a second person has died after attending the same event.

A 17-year-old boy, who also attended the Mad Decent Block Party in Columbia, has passed away. Details are scarce, and the young man's name is currently unknown.

Insidenova.com reports [via Pitchfork] that the young man was a senior at Hylton High School.

It's suspected that he also died of drug-related causes, though authorities say the young man likely didn't have any contact with Tyler Fox Viscardi.

Chairman of I.M.P and Operator of Merriweather Post Pavilion (where the concert was held) Seth Hurwitz issued the following statement:

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.


The Mad Decent Block Party continues this week and includes three Canadian stops. Please be careful out there.

Tour dates:

08/08 Philadelphia, PA - Festival Pier @ Penn's Landing
08/09 Brooklyn, NY - MCU Park @ Coney Island
08/10 Boston, MA - Blue Hills Bank Pavilion
08/15 Toronto, ON - Fort York Garrison Commons
08/16 Detroit, MI - Meadow Brook Music Festival
08/17 Las Vegas, NV - Encore Beach Club
08/22 Denver, CO - Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre
08/23 Nashville, TN - 12th Avenue North
08/29 New Orleans, LA - Mardi Gras World
08/30 New Braunfels, TX - Whitewater Ampitheater
08/31 Dallas, TX - Club Zouk Outside Lot
09/05 Calgary, AB - Shaw Millennium Park
09/12 Phoenix, AZ - Rawhide
09/13 Los Angeles, CA - LA Center Studios
09/14 San Diego, CA - LED
09/19 Berkeley, CA - Greek Theatre - UC Berkeley
09/20 Eugene, OR - Cuthbert Amphitheater
09/21 Vancouver, BC - PNE Amphitheatre

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