LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas police officer ducked gunfire and then teamed up with other authorities to rush a high-rise hotel where a gunman was spraying bullets onto a concert below, according to video released Tuesday from the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
FILE – In this Oct. 1, 2017, file photo, police officers advise people to take cover near the scene of a shooting near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas. A veteran police officer’s self-described freeze in a Las Vegas hotel hallway while a gunman fired on an outdoor concert crowd is prompting a review of whether lives could have been saved if officers had acted faster to stop the mass shooting. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
“Get down! Go that way!” officers tell music fans running for cover after gunfire began raining down Oct 1.
Twenty minutes later, a police radio voice reports that people are running across runways at nearby McCarran International Airport.
The video from officer-worn body cameras marked the latest release of footage, police reports and witness statements ordered by a judge in a public records lawsuit by media, including The Associated Press.
Las Vegas police and the FBI have refused to comment on what have now been nine weekly releases of police documents detailing wrenching accounts of pain, perseverance and luck in the attack that killed 58 people and injured hundreds more.
Two of the three newly released body-camera videos showed officers directing patrons out of the Mandalay Bay casino. Then, the officer who took cover joined a team enters a darkened theater to guard the audience at an 1,800-seat Cirque du Soleil show.
“We’re going to cover these 1,000 people,” his sergeant team leader says.
Some of the many snippets of radio dispatch calls released Tuesday amounted to simply, “OK, copy,” and, “You said door 57, right?”
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, the elected head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, has said authorities believe gunman Stephen Paddock acted alone and that the attack had no link to international terrorism. He has said he expects to release a report from the ongoing investigation by the end of July.
Lombardo has said investigators might never know why Paddock, a 64-year-old high-stakes video-poker player, meticulously stockpiled guns for the attack on a concert crowd of 22,000 people.
By KEN RITTER
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