If you were to stand at the point on LV Blvd where the festival concert was taking place, with LOS to the windows of the suite at the Mandalay Bay where the shooter was stationed, and one single shot was fired from that suite (let's say a blank round for this example) - just one single shot - by the time the sound of the blank being fired reached you at your position, within a few milliseconds of that first audio report of the weapon being fired you'd probably hear at least 10 other reports because of the layout of that area with all the reflections of the audio happening and hitting your position (no pun intended).
So, I have no issue whatsoever with the situation when it was happening in real-time and being reported as multiple shooters by several LVMPD personnel, festival security, witnesses and participants. It's just common sense, folks, that in such a situation and with multiple rapid weapon fire the capacity to echo-locate the exact point of origin of the weapons fire would be effectively impossible and it would have to rely on visual cues more than anything else or the report that was made by the Mandalay Bay security personnel since we now know the security guard was shot before the actual fire on the festival crowd began.
There were several released body cam videos from LVMPD officers on the scene and they were coming up on the Mandalay Bay from the side road that runs perpendicular to the hotel itself on Mandalay Bay Road (runs East/West) and even though they were completely out of the visual range of the windows to that suite it was pretty clear from the audio portion of those videos that the reports (and by reports I mean the audio of an actual round being fired) were coming literally from every angle around them possible. No, they don't wear stereo mics on the body cam assemblies but if you simply listen to the audio with your eyes closed (so you can focus on the audio portion exclusively) and try to imagine yourself in that situation it's pretty easy (unfortunately) to realize all hell was breaking loose around them.
No matter how bad this turned out, no matter how many people have died from this, no matter how many lives have been destroyed or severely damaged for years and decades to come, the situation could have been much much worse and thankfully it ended as quickly as it did. If the shooter hadn't decided for whatever reason to end his own life at the point he did, who knows how long it would have taken the LVMPD to properly breach the door and get inside and end it.
While I'm no longer a resident of Las Vegas, I did live there for almost 12 years until recently and never had any issues with the LVMPD and I know they went through some trying times in the recent past but as we all know there was no way to truly plan for this kind of incident, and even with it having happened and with all the changes to come there's still no way such an incident can be prevented if someone has the will to make it a reality.
I commend the LVMPD and all the emergency services on every level as well as the participants that attended the festival who found themselves in a war zone through no fault of their own. I hope all parties involved are able to move on and recover soon and make the best of the lives they still have a chance to live.
Even though I've only been away from Las Vegas about 2.5 months so far, I miss the place already and I hope to return someday.
