Las Vegas Photos of the Year – Best from Chase Stevens

Normally I’m off Sunday nights, but I volunteered to shoot the final Golden Knights preseason game at T-Mobile Arena so that I could get a little more practice shooting hockey ahead of the season opener.

I had just arrived back at home from the game when I got a call at 10:08 p.m.: there was an active shooter at Mandalay Bay.

Initially on my way back down to the Strip I didn’t think much of it – I’ve covered a range of breaking news incidents on the Strip before, and typically a scene is already blocked off with caution tape upon arrival.

By the time I got to the New York New york parking garage just after 10:30 there still wasn’t a lot of info about the shooting – but the reports of multiple shooters firing on the Route 91 Festival seemed to be very real at the time, and for the next few hours I, and most people I overheard, were fully under the belief that there were three shooters. I don’t think it was until 2 or 3 a.m. that the first reports of only one shooter came out.

Once I got to the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard I saw a large makeshift triage center with ambulances coming by to pick up victims and leaving moments later to make space for the next unit. I saw victims taken to the triage area by wheelbarrow, by hotel luggage cart, by sliding office chair, and by the hands and arms of civilians and first responders.

It was surreal. But I knew I had to keep doing my job, too, so I continued to photograph and document the scene, now over by the port-cochere of the Tropicana.

At one point, huge streams of people poured out on a pedestrian bridge, fleeing from the NYNY. Moments later I saw reports on my phone of a possible shooter at NYNY, possibly at Excalibur, and later Paris, Bellagio and so on.

Around that same moment SWAT officers with guns drawn ran by just 20 feet away. People continued to flee and take cover. Finally, the harsh reality of the situation set in, if only for a moment.

I saw people running into a basement area at Tropicana, and since I had to get some images sent out I decided to head over there to take cover.

I walked in to a crowd of people standing over a woman being treated. I don’t think she was shot, but had been injured in the escape. Just a couple minutes later another woman was carried in by two civilians, and at that moment I took one single shot that later ended up on wires and in newspapers around the world.

About Chase Stevens

Chase Stevens is a staff photographer at the RJ, as well as a UNLV graduate, who first started shooting for the paper as a freelancer in 2012. Chase has worked for clients and outlets that range from the Associated Press and USA Today to Caesars Entertainment and the Las Vegas News Bureau. He was recently recognized by the National Press Photographers Association for his work on the Oregon Standoff, which earned an honorable mention, along with two first-place awards from the Nevada Press Association last fall.