City of Rochester expecting Armory stampede investigation to be complete in a week or two

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – On Tuesday, 35-year-old Brandy Miller was laid to rest.  The Rochester woman died after being trampled at the Main Street Armory during a Glorilla concert on March 5.  Aisha Stephens, 35, of Syracuse, and Rhondesia Belton, 33, of Buffalo, also died from injuries they sustained during the stampede. 

RELATED: Remembering the three women who died after the stampede at the Armory concert

“It’s a great thing when you pass and people have nothing but great things to say, that means that you did what you had to do in this lifetime,” Michelle Miller said of her sister Brandy outside the memorial service. 

Brandy Miller was a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a certified nursing assistant and an organ donor who in her final act, helped to save the lives of four other people with her donation.

Miller had been looking forward to the Glorilla Concert at the Main Street Armory for weeks.  Her family says during the crowd surge, Miller got separated from her friends, fell to the ground and was trampled. 

The Main Street Armory remains closed while the City of Rochester and the police department continue their investigation into what set off the panic, whether the venue was over capacity, if all the emergency doors and exits were open and accessible and if there were enough security guards on hand.  “I think the only thing I can ask for in all of this is that it never happens again,” Michelle Miller told News10NBC, “that someone else doesn’t have to bury their daughter, their sister, their friend, their coworker, nobody had to feel the pain that I feel and we can enjoy life and nobody has to relive this again.”

On Tuesday, News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke was able to catch up with Rochester Mayor Malik Evans.

Jennifer Lewke: We’re looking to see if you have any update on the investigation?

Mayor Evans: Well, the investigation continues.  I hope to have something soon. We want to try to get information out as quickly as possible to what we conclude and I’m thinking in the next week or two we should be able to have a clearer picture of what exactly happened there, but more importantly, what the next steps will be as it relates to the Armory, but more importantly making sure, how do we prevent something like this from happening again? And, I promised that to the families, I promised that to the community and it’s important that we get that wrapped up soon. 

Jennifer Lewke: Who is in the room doing this investigative work and what are they looking at right now? 

Mayor Evans: Well, the law department is sort of the quarterback. We’ve got the police, the fire department, codes, there’s lots of moving parts, lots of people there and a lot to coordinate, so the hope is that we will have some type of report that will detail what happened, and let the community see what all the pieces were that led to this, but the biggest thing is we have to make sure that this doesn’t happen again in our community.

Jennifer Lewke: Do you plan to update the families first before making that report public?

Mayor Evans: Sometimes this is frustrating because you don’t have information on a daily basis so, we hope to definitely make sure that we connect with families as we continue to learn more about what happened so that will give them a sense of closure, but more importantly that it would give the community a bigger view of what happened as it relates to the Armory and the stampede.