‘It was a massacre.’ Terrified concertgoers dive for cover.
SHOOTER LETS LOOSE WITH 10 MINUTES OF GUNFIRE, KILLING DOZENS IN VEGAS
Jason Aldean, the headline act at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, was eight seconds into When She Says Baby when the first shots rang out.
On the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Hotel in Las Vegas, which overlooks the outdoor theatre, Stephen Paddock, 64, had begun firing into the crowd of 22,000 fans from his arsenal of weapons.
Police later recovered 19 rifles — including two with scopes on tripods that were in front of two broken windows from where Paddock was firing, the New York Times reported.
“Some days I’d rather be a no-show ...” Aldean sang before he realized the horror unfolding in front of him. Aldean raced offstage and to sanctuary, later posting that he and his crew were safe.
The concertgoers had no such luck; they were under attack and didn’t stand a chance. The crowd, funnelled tightly into a wideopen space, had little cover and no easy way to escape. Some victims fell to the ground, while others fled in panic. Some hid behind concession stands. Others crawled under parked cars.
At least 59 died and 527 were injured, the worst gun massacre in modern American history. U.S. President Donald Trump described the killings as an “act of pure evil.”
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said the attack was the work of a “crazed lunatic full of hate.”
Country singer Jake Owen was on stage with Aldean when the shooting began at 10:08 p.m. It was like “shooting fish in a barrel,” he said.
Mike McGarry, a financial adviser from Philadelphia, dived on top of his grown children to protect them.
“It was crazy — I laid on top of the kids. They’re 20. I’m 53. I lived a good life,” said McGarry, his shirt covered in footmarks where he had been trampled as it finally dawned on the crowd to run for it.
Camera phone footage captured by Hannah Dorfman, a music industry insider standing close to the stage, recorded nine seconds of gunfire in the initial burst. “Get down. Stay down,” yelled one concertgoer.
The barrage of gunfire erupted again and again, for up to 10 minutes in total.
“It sounded like fireworks,” said Steve Smith, 45, from Phoenix, Arizona. “People were just dropping to the ground. It just kept going on.
“Probably 100 shots at a time. It would sound like it was reloading and then it would go again,” Smith said. “People were shot and trying to get out. A lot of people were shot.”
Kat Phifer, a bartender working at the festival, said: “Maybe on the third song, we heard what we thought was fireworks. We all looked towards where it was coming from, Mandalay Bay. I saw gunfire and everyone immediately fell to the floor.”
Phifer and three colleagues dived behind the bar. “We were freaked out and didn’t know what to do and also in clear view of the shooter,” she posted on Facebook, letting friends know she had survived.
“Gunshots kept coming closer and closer and we were all trying to keep quiet. Five seconds pause, then another round of shots. Closer and closer. I was scared for my life. I was waiting for the bullets to hit us. It was a massacre,” she wrote.
At some stage, police ordered her and her friends to run for it. As she did so she passed five to seven bloodied victims lying on the ground in a heap.
Kodiak Yazzie, 36, described hearing an initial burst, then a pause and then everyone began diving for cover. “It was the craziest stuff I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” he said.
“PEOPLE WERE JUST DROPPING TO THE GROUND. IT JUST KEPT GOING ON. PROBABLY 100 SHOTS AT A TIME. IT WOULD SOUND LIKE IT WAS RELOADING AND THEN IT WOULD GO AGAIN.” — STEVE SMITH, A CONCERTGOER.
“You could hear that the noise was coming from west of us, from Mandalay Bay. You could see a flash-flash-flash-flash.”
Russell Black watched U.S. service veterans in the crowd use first aid training to help the injured as the gunman continued to fire. “I saw a lot of ex-military jump into gear and start plugging bullet holes with their fingers,” he said. “While everyone else was crouching, I saw police officers standing up as targets, just trying to direct people and tell them where to go. The amount of bravery I saw there, words can’t describe what it was like.
“He was just spraying the crowd, it was relentless, there was no stopping, maybe five or eight seconds to move from cover to cover to try and get out as he reloaded.”
Among those killed were at least two off-duty officers.
One survivor, not named, told U.S. television of trying to drag victims under the stage for cover. A friend was shot three times but made it out alive.
The witness said: “My buddy got hit three times. We were diving for the ground. Lots of people got hit. We climbed over a fence and under the stage. One guy ended up dying in my arms; he was bleeding.”
Samantha Evans, 36, from Wales, told how she threw herself to the floor to dodge the bullets and watched in horror as a security guard was shot just metres from her.
“At first I thought it was fireworks but then I heard screams as people were being shot. We all ducked down as low as we could, I was on the floor. It went on for 10 minutes but it felt like forever,” she said.
Taylor Benge, 21, said he and his sister threw themselves on the ground as the gunfire continued and then ran for the exit. “My jeans are covered in someone’s blood, my T-shirt is covered in someone’s blood, my sister’s whole leg was covered in blood,” he said.
Hospital emergency rooms were jammed with the wounded. Rep. Ruben Kihuen, a Democrat whose congressional district includes part of Las Vegas, visited a hospital and said: “Literally, every single bed was being used, every single hallway was being used. Every single person there was trying to save a life.”
Meanwhile, SWAT teams were going floor to floor, clearing out the Mandalay hotel. By the time they reached the 32nd floor, Paddock had already taken his own life.
“We believe the individual killed himself prior to our entry,” said Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “Right now, we believe it’s a sole actor, a lone-wolf type actor. We have no idea what his belief system was.”
“I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath,” he added.