Reported gunshot at mall on Las Vegas Strip evokes memory of Oct. 1

A reported gunshot Monday night at the Fashion Show mall on the Strip sent crowds running and prompted a heavy police response.

Nearly 20 months after a mass shooting about 2½ miles south on the Strip took 58 lives, the response Monday was a startling reminder of how quickly a normal day can turn chaotic.

Las Vegas police said the gunshot was reported shortly after 6 p.m. The preliminary investigation revealed that a fight occurred, but as it broke up, one shot was fired, police said.

No one was injured, but the shooting prompted a precautionary evacuation, according to police. Authorities did not say whether anyone had been apprehended in the shooting.

Police blocked entrances toward the mall for hours. Some officers dressed in tactical gear gathered among a stream of police vehicles that lined Fashion Show Drive on the north side of the shopping center.

Kelly Chacon, of Las Vegas, was about to leave the mall with her mother when they decided to stop into a store just to look around.

Chacon, 16, saw people frantically running, so she took off with her mother in search of an exit. She didn’t hear a gunshot, but people shouted that there was an active shooter, she said. She kept running, not knowing whether she was safe in the mall.

“To me, honestly, it just felt like everything just blanked out and you were just in the moment and you were just trying to run and get out of there as soon as possible,” Chacon said.

People crammed into an elevator, she said, and the doors would not close as more shoved their way in. When the elevator doors shut, one woman told people to begin praying no matter their religion, Chacon said. She tried to stay calm and told her mom they were going to be fine.

With her heart racing, Chacon ran toward Trump International across the street with her mother, she said.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reporting intern Jessica Terrones, who was in the mall at the time, didn’t hear gunshots but “saw crowds of people running and screaming on the second floor.”

She and others hid in the back of a store until a security guard told them it was safe to leave.

Police took down yellow tape blocking the roads, but patrols were still at the mall late Monday. No further information was provided.

Contact Blake Apgar at bapgar@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5298. Follow @blakeapgar on Twitter.