Police release 20th batch of Las Vegas shooting records – VIDEO
A police officer’s camera catches a distraught man frantically trying to find his girlfriend after watching someone die in the latest release of public records from the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting.
The officer is posted in a parking lot off Reno Avenue, not far from the concert venue, when the shirtless young man approaches him about an hour after the Oct. 1 attack. The man cries as he describes trying to save the victim, who was shot in the neck.
“I laid him down, and I took my shirt off, and I tried to help him,” he says, breaking down more.
The officer consoles the man but won’t let him re-enter the festival grounds.
The footage was included among 42 body camera videos released Wednesday by Las Vegas police.
It was the 20th court-ordered release since early May of Metropolitan Police Department audio, video or documents from the mass shooting, which left 58 concertgoers dead and hundreds more injured.
All of the new footage came after the gunfire ended. It captured police activity near the festival grounds, outside local hospitals, on Strip sidewalks and inside several resorts.
Gunshot refresher course
In one video, two female officers stand with a group of other officers, some of them trainees, as they review how to check for bullet wounds on victims. A male officer says he has about nine tourniquets and dressings in his bag to treat a “GSW,” short for gunshot wound.
“Check for GSWs by sections” of the body, a female officer says. “Like front, then sides, then back, but look at your hands in between.”
Another video shows an officer pull out his phone inside a Strip resort, then zoom in on a photo of a smiling Marilou Danley.
“Wanted for questioning,” the officer says to another officer, showing him the photo.
He holds his phone out and walks around, letting at least one other officer see the picture.
Danley, the gunman’s girlfriend, was in the Philippines at the time, and authorities have said she was not involved in the attack.
A video filmed shortly before 3 a.m. on Oct. 2 shows dozens of people sheltering on the second floor of the Tropicana Las Vegas as armed officers stand guard. Many of the people are wrapped in white blankets and wearing cowboy boots and purple Route 91 wristbands.
They are huddled together, sitting and leaning against walls or lying down on the hotel’s flower-print carpet.
“We don’t have to take everyone’s names,” an officer says just before they start releasing people. “But if they walk by, you can basically say, ‘Was anyone a witness to the crime?’”
They can collect the name and number of anyone who answers yes, the officer says. “But right now, folks need to get home.”
Arrested for overreacting
At least two videos released Wednesday captured officers interacting with angry or upset people who ended up in handcuffs.
One, filmed on Hacienda Avenue just west of the Strip, shows an officer talking to a man sitting in the back of a patrol car.
“I mean earlier, you were out there accusing people of being terrorists and stuff,” the officer says to the man. “They don’t know what’s going on.”
The man calls himself a bad person, and the officer sighs.
“I don’t believe you’re a bad person,” the officer says after adjusting the man’s handcuffs so they’re more comfortable. “Just think you’re just … overreacting.”
The second arrest was caught on camera just off Las Vegas Boulevard near MGM Grand, where a belligerent man compared officers to the KGB after they ordered him to leave the area.
“We’ve got bigger issues than you tonight,” one officer is heard telling the man.
As police escort him toward the end of a road, someone asks if the man needs to be arrested.
“Oh, yeah, he definitely needs to go to jail for obstructing,” the officer wearing the camera replies.
Police previously released more than 3,000 pages of witness statements and officer reports, as well as 911 calls and additional body camera footage. The Review-Journal and other media organizations sued for the records in the days after the shooting.
Metro said it will release more records next week.
Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter. Review-Journal writers Jessie Bekker, Natalie Bruzda, Rachel Crosby, Meghin Delaney, Rio-Felice Lacanlale, Wade Tyler Millward, Katelyn Newberg and Mike Shoro contributed to this report.
