America mournsonce more
Kiwis in shock after chilling assault
Then the volley of gunfire started. It was very loud. We were very close to it. Greg Foster, staying next door
Kevin Barry says family friends among victims, while NZ visitors to Nevada tell of gunfire and panic
Kiwis in Las Vegas are reeling from the horrific scale of the city’s mass shooting and have described how they feared for their own lives. Kevin Barry, who has lived for 14 years in the casino city in Nevada, United States, was shocked by the attack, which affected family friends.
Barry, trainer of Kiwi heavyweight boxer and WBO world champion Joseph Parker, said a friend of one of his son’s friends had been killed.
And a good friend of the New Zealander’s wife, Tanya, had been shot in the chest, while her daughter had been wounded in an arm.
“My immediate network is safe and sound but when you’ve got 59 people dead and 527 in hospital injured, you know that you’re going to know some people,” Barry said.
Waikato police Senior Sergeant Greg Foster and his family were staying in the Luxor Hotel, next to Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, where the gunman was shooting from. Foster had just gone to bed when he heard gunshots.
“We could hear the concert very clearly from our hotel room. Then the volley of gunfire started. It was very loud. We were very close to it. It sounded like it was directly outside our window.”
Foster’s first fears were for his mother, who was downstairs in the casino, so he went to get her.
“There were people that were being dragged into the hotel; police officers were running round and telling us to go back to our room. It was quite a chaotic scene.”
Auckland couple Steve and Carl Harper-Travers watched from their balcony at the Cosmopolitan.
“It was just crazy,” Steve HarperTravers said. “Suddenly people were running back to the hotels, jumping out of cabs, running into hotels and then all of a sudden the street was pretty much empty.”
Rosemarie and Adrian Park were in Las Vegas for their fifth wedding anniversary. Rosemarie’s mother, Jean Holmes, speaking from her Hawke’s Bay home, said her daughter was standing opposite the Mandalay listening to the concert and it was a miracle she wasn’t there. “The last I heard Rosemarie was very, very upset because of what she saw.”
Meg Hawkins of Christchurch and her husband Michael were watching David Copperfield at MGM Grand when they noticed the security guards running towards a door.
The illusionist told the audience to stay seated because there had been a shooting outside and the hotel was in lockdown. “People were laughing and he was like ‘ no, no, no — it’s not a joke. Please stay in your seats’.”
They were kept there for two hours. When they were finally let out all the roads back to their hotel, the Bellagio, were blocked.
Wellington man Ben Northrop and his partner Callum Macleod were also heading to the Bellagio when they came across the horrific scenes.
“We didn’t see the actual shooting but the aftermath was pretty traumatic . . . there was panic on the streets and we were told there were multiple shooters so we didn’t know which way to go. We got into the hotel last night, finally, about 3.30am after sneaking our way around past gun battles and large amounts of police and soldiers and the like.”
Carnage in Las Vegas