LAS VEGAS (AP) — Some of the first officers to respond to the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history directed people to take cover, armed themselves and gathered in groups to try to find and stop the Las Vegas gunman, according to video from police body-worn cameras that was released Wednesday.
“It’s coming from the Mandalay Bay!” an officer is heard saying on one video.
“Stay down!” he tells unseen people during bursts of rapid gunfire, while a dispatcher on his police radio says multiple people have gunshot wounds. “Over here! Get behind the police car!”
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department released 28 clips of body-camera video ranging from a few seconds to more than two hours. It marks the sixth batch of information released under court order in a lawsuit by media organizations, including The Associated Press.
Names of the officers were not provided, and police and the FBI have declined to comment on any of the material released months after the Oct. 1 shooting that killed 58 people and injured hundreds of others.
Video, audio and documents have not shed light on a motive for the shooting, and the elected head of the Police Department has said the investigation has not identified one.
A new clip shows an officer and his partner taking a woman with a tourniquet around her wounded leg to a hospital, where other injured people are being loaded on gurneys outside.
“C’mon baby,” the officer says as the woman is wheeled inside.
Another video, lasting about 30 minutes and not identified with a time stamp, shows officers in a hallway outside the Mandalay Bay hotel suite where authorities say gunman Stephen Paddock killed himself before police reached him. The back of an officer’s hand was sweating as he uncapped a bottle of water.
Another untimed video shows the view from the collar of a male officer armed with a rifle while he and other officers search the hotel’s casino floor.
The department also released 511 additional audio clips from 911 calls — a similar number to those made public last week.
In one, an unidentified man whispers to an emergency dispatcher that he’s hiding in a broom closet at the Planet Hollywood resort, several blocks away from the shooting.
“We want to know if it’s safe,” he says in the call time-stamped two hours and 30 minutes after the gunfire began.
The material has provided sometimes graphic and heartbreaking details of people screaming for help, falling during rapid gunfire and helping each other escape the carnage at an outdoor concert as gunfire rained down from the windows of a hotel room on the 32nd floor.
Newly released video bolstered written reports from officers who raced from casino to casino on the Las Vegas Strip debunking reports of multiple shooters and bomb threats.
A preliminary police report released in January said Paddock, 64-year-old high-stakes gambler, researched police SWAT tactics, rented hotel rooms overlooking other outdoor concerts and investigated potential targets in at least four U.S. cities.
Lombardo has said he expects a final investigative report will be released next month. The FBI plans to release a report by the anniversary of the shooting.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.