Concertgoers scrambled for cover as bullets rained down
A man protects a woman on the ground, above, at the Route 91 country music festival in Las Vegas; police officers take up defensive positions, above right, after the shooting; an officer stand ready to react, right; and, below, concertgoers flee after the event was sprayed with gunfire. QUADRUPLE-PLATINUM country artist Jason Aldean was into his second and final set on stage with his trademark broadbrimmed hat when the first bullets rained down from a balcony high above the open-air concert on Las Vegas’ famous strip.
For a moment, he stopped playing and like his relaxed late-night crowd everybody looked about before deciding it was nothing and he and his band started up again and concertgoers stood up having instinctively ducked. Some thought a speaker failure, others a jack hammer.
But then dozens more rapid fire “pops” rang out continuously and people in the 30,000-strong crowd began to fall as, from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino balcony overlooking the scene, people saw muzzle flashes from at least one gunman firing an automatic weapon.
Everyone heard the stunning repetitive fire, shortly after 10pm, but it was almost too unbelievable. Many thought it was fireworks and looked about before the call to “get down” rang out. The screams followed shortly after.
Inside the casino, people continued to gamble, dance and drink before, from the outside, bloodied people burst into the casino, eventually followed by hundreds of heavily armed police ordering a stop to the evening.
“It was like shooting fish in a barrel,” local radio announcer Laurie Steele said as she recapped how hundreds of rounds were fired on to the 15-acre lot of the outdoor Route 91 Harvest concert.
The “pops” lasted a full five minutes and, at the end of it, the grassed area outside the resort casino was littered with bodies.
“We heard (what) sounded like a glass breaking, so you looked around to see what’s going on and then heard a pop, pop, pop,” Monique Dekerf told CNN.
“You’d think for a moment OK we’re fine, there’s no more gunfire, then it starts again.”
Her sister said it sounded like “the shots were coming from the right side ... it sounded like they were right beside us too ... it was right there.”
Panic erupted, particularly at the Mandalay Bay hotel on the southern end of the famous strip, a 43-storey block famous for its jazz and other music and entertainment.
Jon Bessette was in the crowd when gunshots rang out. “The band ran off stage and it was pandemonium,” Mr Bessette said. “Everyone was running, people were getting trampled.”
People hid under cars, tables, others dragging themselves bare foot along Las Vegas Boulevard with blood streaming from wounds. One witness described it like a war zone. If that was the battlefield, then nearby Sunrise Hospital and Medical Centre was the MASH 4077 with more than 140 people either staggering or being carried in distress.
Americans are sadly accustomed to reports of active shooters, high schools, shopping malls and military bases but never on such a scale in such a famous area and for so long, the drama of the shooting and the chase lasting at least one hour.