At least two people were killed and another 24 injured in a shooting on the Las Vegas Strip early Monday morning, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed. Witnesses described gunfire breaking out at a concert that was taking place outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said on Twitter that one suspect is down and that they do not believe there are any more shooters.
Police had earlier issued a warning on Twitter telling people to avoid the area around the Mandalay Bay due to reports of an active shooter.
The 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.
“Pray for Las Vegas,” the city’s mayor tweeted. “Thank you to all our first responders out there now.”
Concertgoers describe shooting
Route 91 Harvest, a large country music festival, was being held at the Mandalay Bay Center this weekend.
CNN spoke to three people who were attending the concert at the Las Vegas Village outdoor arena when gunfire broke out, causing them to flee. They described hearing the sound of gunfire while Jason Aldean was performing.
“We were close to the stages — about six rows from the front on the left hand side and he was just performing,” Rachel Dekerf said.
“People went down on the Mandalay side of the stage,” Joe Pitzel said. “I don’t know if people were ducking or if people were hit.”
Derkef filmed her escape from the venue using her cell phone, starting just after the first shots were fired.
She described ongoing gunfire, and played out the video she had recorded during which more than five minutes of gunfire were intermittently audible.
“The gunshots lasted for 10-15 minutes. It didn’t stop,” she said. “We just ran for our lives.”
‘Go, go, go, go’
Derkef’s sister, Monique Dumas, said that everyone instantly crouched when they heard the shots.
“The band was rushed off the stage, the floodlights came on the crowd, and you see on the right hand of the stage the person who was injured, so they’re calling for medics, calling for security, then there was gunfire again,” Dumas said.
“It seemed there was a pause in the gunfire and the people in the yellow shirts were telling the people to ‘go, go, go, go’ … the gunfire never ended, it seemed like it went on and on and on,” she said.
A concertgoer told CNN affiliate KLAS that everybody was lying on top of each other trying to get out of the shooter’s way.
“Everybody’s hiding everywhere, they’re hiding under the bleachers and the stanchions, anywhere they could and everyone is telling us to ‘run, run as fast as you can,'” she told the news station. “And my husband and I ran out toward our car and there were people hiding underneath my car for cover and there was a gentleman who was shot and he said, ‘can you help me?’ and so I put him in my car and I had like six people in my car, people without shoes, running, just to get away.”
‘Sounded like firecrackers’
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.
Facebook has set up a crisis response page to help people establish whether their loved ones are safe.
Developing story – more to come
