Fire chief wants changes in the wake of Las Vegas mass shooting
CARSON CITY, Nev. — A Las Vegas-area fire chief who warned lawmakers months before a 2017 mass shooting at a music festival that Nevada should bolster its emergency management planning says he wants to bypass state lawmakers to get changes made.
Six months before the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting on the Las Vegas Strip that killed 58 and left hundreds injured, Clark County Fire Department Chief Greg Cassell testified before state legislators in favor of a bill that would have required more coordination of emergency medical resources ahead of such a large event.
Investigators say gunman Stephen Paddock acted alone when he fired from a high-rise suite in the Mandalay Bay casino-resort into the crowd of 22,000 at the Route 91 Harvest festival. The FBI concluded Paddock sought notoriety in the attack but said it found no “single or clear motivating factor” to explain why he opened fire on the concert.
Cassell said Friday that had the legislation passed, the fire department would likely have had a fire incident commander on the scene before the shooting.
Having a fire incident commander at the event could have improved communication and made for a cleaner response plan, Cassell said. Months before the event, he told lawmakers the effort would avoid delays in ordering and directing emergency help.
The legislation he supported in 2017 passed the Assembly unanimously but failed to make it out of the Senate. It’s unclear why the bill failed to pass, and Cassell said he never received a clear answer on why the bill did not cross the finish line. Generally, he said, changes at the statehouse can get bogged down by the number of people and interests involved.
This year, he is instead pushing for Clark County to make changes requiring events of a certain size to have fire personnel on scene and in unified command with police.