Oct. 1 video shows Las Vegas police trying to evacuate Jason Aldean
A Las Vegas police sergeant has a brief tug of war with Jason Aldean’s manager over whether to evacuate the concert headliner in body camera footage released Wednesday from the Oct. 1 attack.
In a short exchange among the trailers and buses parked behind the Route 91 Harvest festival’s main stage, Aldean’s manager, Jake LaGrone, says he doesn’t want “the big guy” moved from his bus until they get the all-clear from police or there is a concrete plan for getting him to safety.
But Sgt. Justin Van Nest says he wants to clear everybody out right away because the tour vehicles are in the line of fire and he can’t guarantee the safety of the people inside.
“I don’t want people sitting here in buses if he decides to shoot a rocket launcher down here,” Van Nest says. “Pretty soon I’m going to stop asking you, because this is our event.”
Aldean never appears in the video clip.
According to police reports, witness statements and interviews given by the country music star, Aldean briefly took cover on stage when the shooting began in the middle of his performance. He then made his way to his bus, where he sheltered with his pregnant wife, Brittany, and several others.
More than a dozen people, including an infant, hid out in another bus behind the stage.
Aldean and company eventually evacuated under police escort, first to a nearby church and then to the private air terminal at McCarran International Airport.
Coming under fire
Wednesday’s batch of 16 body camera videos marked the 13th court-ordered release since early May of Metropolitan Police Department audio, video or documents from the tragedy, which left 58 concertgoers dead and hundreds more injured.
The footage follows officers as they respond to the shooting at a variety of locations, from the second floor of Mandalay Bay to roadblocks and staging areas along Las Vegas Boulevard.
Van Nest’s 55-minute video begins as he and several other officers scramble for cover behind a block wall along the west side of the Route 91 concert venue.
At first, the officers can’t figure out where the shots are coming from.
“It’s close. I can smell the gunpowder,” Van Nest says.
The footage captures a change in the pace of the shooting, as the gunman fires several single shots at the aviation fuel tanks at McCarran before he goes back to spraying long bursts into the festival crowd.
At one point, Van Nest gets showered with debris from the gunfire and tells officers to get right up against the wall and stay down.
He moves over to a man in uniform who is bleeding from the neck. It’s Casey Clarkson.
“Casey, kneel down,” he says, shining his light on the wound. “OK, it’s just a nick, buddy. You’ve just got a nick. You’re OK.”
Van Nest calls out over the radio that officers are pinned down with 40 or 50 civilians, and he warns responders to avoid the Strip at Mandalay Bay Drive or risk coming under fire.
His radio traffic can be heard echoing back at him over the radios of the officers around him as the shooting continues.
Through it all, the sergeant and his cohorts keep having to restrain one concertgoer who claims to be a SWAT officer with the LAPD.
“You’re not SWAT here, and you’re drunk,” Van Nest says. “Sit against this wall.”
Moments later, another inebriated man who identifies himself as an off-duty firefighter is placed in handcuffs after ignoring repeated commands to take cover.
A frustrated Van Nest clicks on his radio and says, “Just be advised we have several drunk civilians that are jumping the gate and trying to run toward the gunfire.”
Frustrated by the ‘help’
It’s a recurring theme in many of the body camera videos from that night: Good Samaritans who think they’re helping but really aren’t, often because they’ve been drinking or they can’t follow directions or they think they should be in charge.
Through the rest of his video, Van Nest grows increasingly exasperated with all the people who come up to tell him they’re medics or war veterans or cops from out of town, only to pepper him with questions or ignore his instructions to get to safety.
“We’re having trouble getting citizens to leave here,” he finally says over the radio as he stands near the festival’s main stage. “They’re still out in the open here as targets. I need a couple more officers to help me clear this area.”
Police previously released more than 3,000 pages of witness statements and officer reports, as well as 911 calls and additional body camera footage. The Review-Journal and other media organizations sued for the records in the days after the shooting. Metro fought their release for months.
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo previously said a final report on the massacre would be released by the end of July. A Metro spokeswoman this week said the final report is now expected sometime within the next two weeks.
A separate FBI report on the shooting will not be ready until sometime after the one-year anniversary, according to The Associated Press.
Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writers Rachel Crosby, Wade Millward, Amelia Pak-Harvey and Mike Shoro contributed to this report.
