Two people have died from gunshot wounds and at least another 24 are injured after an early morning shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, a city hospital confirmed.
Police issued a warning on Twitter telling people to avoid the area around the Mandalay Bay Casino due to reports of an active shooter.
They later tweeted that “one suspect is down.”
The city’s University Medical Center said that 26 people had been hospitalized with gunshot wounds and at least two of them had died from their injuries. Another 12 are in a critical condition, according to hospital spokeswoman Danita Cohen.
The hospital is still working to assess the other victims, Cohen said.
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 told the news station.
“My boyfriend had me move behind a building here because it just didn’t sound right,” she told KSNV. “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.
The Mayor of Las Vegas tweeted: “Pray for Las Vegas. Thank you to all our first responders out there now.”
Developing story – more to come
