Las Vegas police are telling people to avoid the area around the Mandalay Bay Casino due to reports of an active shooter. Las Vegas Metro Police issued the warning in a post on Twitter early Monday.
Multiple people with gunshot wounds have been taken to the University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to hospital spokeswoman Danita Cohen.
Police later tweeted that “one suspect is down.”
Eyewitness Bryan Heifner spoke to CNN from a room in a hotel across from the Mandalay Bay, which he said he could see from his window.
“Mostly I heard the shots, just so many shots — I just thought it was a semi braking with the air brakes, but then I went downstairs and saw people running and looking for family,” he said.
“I immediately went back to my room, locked the door, turned the lights off.”
Another witness told CNN affiliate KSNV that the shooting sounded like firecrackers at first.
“It didn’t sound normal, it sounded like machine guns and it was like several rounds, it was like hundreds of rounds,” she said.
“My boyfriend had me move behind a building here because it just didn’t sound right,” she said. “And then we hid behind a building and we could just hear hundreds of rounds going off and then about 10 minutes later the police came and just blocked off all the streets.”
She said she was about a block from the Harvest 91 Festival, which was taking place near the Mandalay Bay.
Developing story – more to come
