Author: The Office of Justice Programs’ National Institute of Justice (NIJ)
By David Montero Los Angeles Times
LAS VEGAS — Some of the most graphic and terrifying videos of the mass shooting in Las Vegas were released by police Wednesday — the sixth cache of items connected with the deadly massacre at last year’s country music concert.
In one of the videos from a police officer’s body camera, scared and wounded people are triaged on a street and sidewalk. A man walks up to an officer and asks if he can get an ambulance for a woman shot in the lungs.
“This guy was shot in the head here,” the unidentified officer says, pointing to man by a tree.
“We’re OK. We’re OK,” two woman say, walking past the officer as he heads toward the man, navigating past people holding wounds. And each other.
Later in the video, a woman is taken from a pickup truck — her limp body put into a crowded ambulance full of other people. “She’s DOA,” a voice says.
Other body camera videos detail police under fire from Stephen Paddock, the gunman firing from his 32nd floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Paddock killed 58 and wounded several hundred last Oct. 1, before killing himself.
“I’m trying to get medical,” an officer says moments after gunfire erupted and screams were heard. His camera is obscured partially by some clothing.
“This is what we’ll do … “ he starts to tell people when another volley of gunfire begins — a heavy, steady clacking sound. He ducks down. When the shooting stops, the officer moves to an area of tents where people are running.
One man sprinting, falls and rolls. He looks stunned. Then gets up and takes off again. The officer asks someone to turn off the lights to make it harder for the gunman to see. “Every single light,” he yells.
Moving along a wall, he keeps directing people to run to a safer location.
Then they make a break for it.
“Are you hit?” he asks the first person he sees.
“Is that a gunshot wound?” he asks, leaning down.
He again asks for the lights to be turned down. “So he can’t see us,” the officer says.
They find another wounded person. A woman. “Let’s get her on a grate,” he says.
“Did you get the shooter?” a woman asks while he’s trying to get the wounded woman on the makeshift stretcher.
Voices are raised as a man who says he’s an off-duty police officer asks if he can help. Another is a firefighter. Off-camera, a voice yells out, “Does anybody need a tourniquet?”
More wounded. There’s a man with a spinal injury. The officer tries to figure out how to get a gate open to move people through it. In the background, people stagger and walk through the concert grounds — sometimes directionless.
The lights still haven’t been turned off. The officer asks someone again to try and get them dimmed. There hasn’t been anymore gunfire from the Mandalay Bay, but nobody immediately knows why.
“A tourniquet,” the voice yells again. “I have belts!” he screams.
A wounded person is loaded into a yellow wheelbarrow. “The shaking hurts,” the wounded man says as they hustle over the bumpy terrain. “It felt like a beanbag hit me really hard.”
They get to safety and the officer watches the man be wheeled away by two other people. He turns around and there are more.
“There’s a woman with a bullet wound in her head in the middle aisle there,” a woman in a white dress and cowboy boots says.
A video from a different body camera reveals an officer pinned behind a car and, in between gunfire, directing people to take cover behind the vehicle as well.
Police have now released several hundred 911 calls connected to the shooting along with witness statements, interviews with victims, traffic surveillance footage and body camera footage of police breaching the room where Paddock was ensconced.
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo has said a final report of findings related to the shooting will be released next month. So far, authorities have not been able to pin down a motive for Paddock’s deadly attack.
The 64-year-old was known as a heavy gambler, and Lombardo has suggested he had been on a losing streak before the shooting. Paddock began amassing an arsenal of weapons and ammunition a year before the shooting, and when search warrants were executed, his parked car at Mandalay Bay was also found to contain explosives.
©2018 Los Angeles Times
