New video shows first officer breaching Oct. 1 gunman’s hotel room

Newly released body camera footage shows the first police officer to enter the gunman’s hotel room after the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting in Las Vegas, despite previous statements from authorities that the video did not exist.

The hour-and-a-half-long body camera footage, posted in full to YouTube nearly eight years after the attack, was previously only available in brief segments in the 2022 Paramount+ documentary “11 Minutes.”

The video documents officer Levi Hancock’s entry into gunman Stephen Paddock’s Mandalay Bay suite after Paddock fired more than 1,000 rounds from his hotel room window at the Route 91 Harvest festival crowd. Paddock then died by suicide in the room.

The attack initially killed 58 people and left hundreds more injured. Two more women later died from their injuries, bringing the total number of fatalities to 60.

In the video, Hancock analyzed Paddock’s belongings, including a player’s card, wallet, binoculars and packaging tape, all left on the kitchen counter. Multiple large guns also were found in the central area of the room, along with Paddock’s body.

In 2018, the Metropolitan Police Department said Hancock did not activate his body-worn camera that night, without sharing why.

“Levi Hancock was the first officer who breached the room that did not have his BWC activated. … As indicated above, Hancock did not have his BWC activated,” an attorney for Metro told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in an email on May 1, 2018.

A statement to the Review-Journal on Thursday appeared to contradict what the attorney wrote in 2018.

“LVMPD has never claimed Officer Hancock’s video did not exist,” it stated. “We did state Officer Hancock did not have his BWC activated at the time of the breach on 1 October.”

Footage from other officers who helped clear the gunman’s rooms was released in 2018. In total, hundreds of videos were released under court order.

In Metro’s statement on Thursday, the department said Hancock realized “several minutes” after he entered the room that he had not activated his body camera and that he turned it on at that time.

“The allegation that LVMPD hid Officer Hancock’s video from the public is false and misleading,” the department stated.

Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said the department’s explanation “doesn’t hold water.”

“Metro had a legal obligation to produce this video in 2018,” Cook said Thursday. “Metro was sued over its refusal to release public records related to the Oct. 1 shooting, and Metro lost that case. Through its counsel, it clearly represented in 2018 that this video did not exist. When did Metro know of the video’s existence?”

Las Vegas Shooting Archive, a YouTube account that has collected and shared body camera videos from the Route 91 shooting, said a viewer requested the body camera footage from Metro after it appeared on the Paramount+ documentary.

According to the YouTube account, the request first yielded a “highly redacted” video. After appealing the redaction, Metro provided a less censored version of the video, which was posted to the account.

“Why the LVMPD withheld the footage back then, lied to the public and ignored a court order to release it is anyone’s guess,” the caption states.

If you are thinking about suicide, or are worried about a loved one or friend, help is available 24/7 by calling or texting the Lifeline network at 988. Live chat is available at 988lifeline.org.

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.