Shieldel

I will make an account later but I wanted to chime in.... I am a survivor of Las Vegas. I was at Route 91, I was at that country festival all 3 nights. I was a member of the Civil Air Patrol then, the all volunteer civilian Auxiliary of the US Air Force. I do search and rescue and responded to medical calls throughout my CAP membership What you folks fail to realize (especially the person who made a comment carrying a Glock and IFAK, good for you but I'll get to why I brought that up specifically, keep in mind I only got as far as the end of page 3 before I made my comment) is that at the time of the shots fired, as well as throughout the festival, the venue WAS a GUN FREE ZONE. We were searched, as were bags, and we were wanded and those of us wearing cowboy/western/southern/country/whatever the hell you want to call them, our boots were patted down. So yes while "shame on us for relying on others" (that comment pissed me off but I'm not one to let it bother me, just as somebody who was there I'm like "really?! wow...") I follow the law and I follow security instructions. I left my knife in the vehicle, I did not have a handgun at the time (however to support the point I read that victims of crimes are the ones to have firearms, since that event I got my CCW and have 1, soon another Beretta handgun for CCW, and I have a Mossberg 590M Mag fed 12GA pump action shotgun, and soon a POF Puritan 7.62 rifle I'm buying from a friend, it's an AR-15/AK-47 type rifle, it takes a little bit of both into one rifle) I had the opportunity of working WITH USAF Security Forces (USAF Military Police. throughout this comment I will make it clear I -WAS- a CIVILIAN VOLUNTEER in A VOLUNTEER USAF program) I know what gunfire sounds like. Stephen Paddack had a full auto, select fire rifle. Possibly multiple. But yes, he had select fire. No bump stocks were used (they found some equipped in the room but they were not used during his actual rampage) He started off with single shots trying to blow up an airport fuel tank at McCarran International across the way from one of the fence lines. His intentions were to blow up this tank to get ALL 22,000 of us along that fence line going "WTF?" then open up in a dense crowd. Sure we were a dense, target rich area as it was but with us all along one fence it would have been literally spray and pray into a nice packed crowd (granted, that's what it was anyways but like I said, we would ALL be on ONE fence, much easier than all of us spread out in the open) I was in the bring your own chair area in the rear as soon as I heard the single shots I yelled for my area to get down, those are gun shots, everybody thought it was firecrackers or show effects, it was not. People were in shock and couldn't believe it. The few LVMPD officers that were there for concert security instantly drew their service weapons and started scanning the crowd. It wasn't until the evacuation came and more LVMPD SUVs showed up that they realized it was at altitude. At that point EVERYBODY ran for their cars and broke into their "oh shit kits" and threw on their body armor and rifles. At this point all the street/patrol officers had gone into their kits and broke them out. This was about 10:30 maybe 10:45ish PM 10-1-17 (as response lasted until 10-2 in the wee hours of the morning. Here locally in Vegas the event is known as "1 October, or One October". Me personally my training from CAP kicked in as we're sometimes called up for security for various different events around town. I was helping marshal people to safety with LVMPD motioning people out. I am the first person to get through to 911 as the police dispatchers are separate from the civilian 911 call takers. When I got through to the emergency center (as our fire, medical, and PD 911 call takers are all in one combined facility) they couldn't believe what I told them but as soon as I said shots fired Las Vegas Village I heard a Metro Dispatcher come running over to their desk and confirm it and they took the call. So I was then talking to somebody who normally deals with the LEOs and other services as she dispatches public services out. She told me LVMPD officers who were there radio'd it in and the service dispatchers were aware of it while the civilian call takers were NOT aware of what was going on, that's why she came running over when she heard a civilian who was there was on the phone. I gave her my name, what I was wearing, and asked her some emergency management related questions as I have federal disaster experience with FEMA and have ICS-300 which is a high level class you have to take in person. This class is for mid-level management staff of an incident, not a lot of then 20 year olds, now 22 year olds have it, I've never met anybody my age with ICS-300 other than those in CAP. She told me to stay strong and STICK WITH METRO. I embedded with a Fire and PD Strike Team and went to work. I was given a vest and went to do what I was trained to do and work medical. I worked medical with EMT's improvising tourniquets and doing what we could do until 5-5:30 AM when the initial FBI team came in and declared a crime scene in conjunction with Metro CSI when they showed up. I walked up to the lead agent in charge ID'd myself as a civilian and asked if I could grab my things before I was escorted to the Thomas and Mack UNLV Sports Arena that was activated as an emergency shelter. When everything first went down I ditched my pack and everything I had. They asked me to leave it as it was evidence, everything there, all our ditched property was evidence. I was taken to UNLV, that was alphabet soup from EVERY. SINGLE. AGENCY. local, state, and federal. You even had USAF Security Forces with snipers on the roof of UNLV and Thomas and Mack. They were NOT playing around. I stayed there for maybe half an hour before my Civil Air Patrol commander came and called me and asked where I was as he knew I was there. He came and grabbed me from T&M and took me home. It was a wild night of response. I've met families of the 58, I'm friends with somebody's cousin who died in my arms. I blame myself for not being able to do better even though I know goddamn well we did all we could do that night. Metro had NO playbook so to speak and they were writing it on the fly for future events, god forbid. Officers who had JUST GRADUATED on Friday day one of the festival were thrown into hell on Sunday, trial by fire quite literally. Firefighters and EMTs who weren't even DONE with academy yet were thrown into the worst medical scene Vegas has ever seen. They were all trainees off duty. For me personally....as an LVMPD Police Explorer of 5 years who went through the full program I lost a dear friend and a mentor, somebody I admired and somebody I looked up to. LVMPD lost an officer that night. Off duty US Army National Guardsman and LVMPD Officer Charleston "Chucky" Hartfield, P9008 took his last watch One October. Off duty. Doing what he himself was trained to do and help people get to safety. He told his wife and kids to move and go. And he perished with 57 others. I went to his funeral and bawled so hard in USAF Service Blues. He was posthumously promoted and made First Sgt of his unit. Both the NV Guard General as well as LVMPD Sheriff Lombardo were in attendance. His final call was done at his funeral as well. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever listened to as a young 22 year old due to my personal connection with Hartfield. I share my first hand account not to toot my horn but to despell some of the things I saw in this post. 2017 at the time of Route 91 I worked at Amazon in the newest facility in the whole company. Now I work as an unarmed security officer in Downtown Vegas working the Fremont Street Experience "armed" only with OC/Pepper Spray and my hand to hand training. I have aspirations as an executive protections plainclothes CCW type officer maybe working for the likes of Pinkerton. I had aspirations for Metro (hence my explorers participation) but this event unfortunately closed that door for me. I still have aspirations of "public service" in a way as my time in CAP following the USAF core values of "Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence in All We Do" still guide me through my professional and personal life. CAP adds a fourth which is Respect but that should come in everyday life too I find. And since Route 91 we unfortunately at the end of 2018 in Novmeber at the Borderline Bar Thousand Oaks Shooting in CA, we had some Route survivors go through their 2nd incident as well as one survivor perishing then at that 2nd incident who was ALSO military, a Navy Veteran, Telemachus "Tel" Orfanos I'll go create my account now, but that's my recollection of Route 91