Original subtitles

[chair creaking]

- There's a very heavy weight

that goes with being the storyteller.

It's a lot of responsibility to tell it the right way.

I've spent five years with this story, with these memories.

And it's important to take care of it.

It's important that people know the truth,

out of respect for those we lost--

[somber music]

Out of those who were injured,

those who are still mentally and physically scarred,

to care for those affected,

to make sure that everybody is represented fairly,

that everybody's spirits and legacies remain intact.

The friendships made that night,

in those 11 minutes, were made for a reason.

♪ ♪

The story, to me, wasn't about a shooter.

It was about people helping each other,

humans helping humans, and to me,

that is the only story that should be told.

We'll never forget it,

so instead of trying to forget it, it's--

let's make sure that it's-- something good comes from this.

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

[live music playing indistinctly]

- I've been waiting all week to get out here.

[cheers and applause]

I am looking forward to tonight in Las Vegas,

I know these guys are all looking forward to it.

Y'all gotta bring the energy. - Yeah!

- Y'all are the fuel to our fire.

[cheers and applause]

[Jason Aldean's "She's Country"]

♪ ♪

- ♪ She's a hot little number in the pickup truck ♪

It's all weekend long at the beautiful Strip of Las Vegas.

Welcome back to Route 91 Harvest Fest, everybody!

[cheers and applause]

♪ Country ♪

Are we ready to party? [cheers and applause]

♪ From her cowboy boots to her down-home roots ♪

♪ She's country ♪

♪ From the songs she plays to the to the prayer she prays ♪

- The Route 91 Harvest Fest, right in the shadows

of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas,

it was a really successful festival.

And it was sold out the first year.

It was the top headliners of the game

played this festival.

The newest, the hottest, the biggest.

It attracted fans from all the way to the East Coast.

- ♪ Mama taught her how to rip up the town ♪

♪ Honey drippin' honey from a holler in Kentucky ♪

- Everybody give it up for Dee Jay Silver!

[cheers and applause]

- Man, I think I did 11 different shows that weekend,

from pool parties and nightclubs,

then, of course, the festival.

- Hi!

- My son, Wake, he had just turned one.

I wanted to bring him to Vegas.

I'm proud of what I do, and I might be done

by the time my kid's old enough to realize what I do,

and I wanted to share

as much of my life with him as I could,

so my kid was backstage with me all day long, taking pictures.

I'm handing him around like a football,

saying, "Take a picture," you know?

- ♪ She's country ♪

- And, of course, my dude was headlining the festival.

Jason and I, we had become family over the years.

- We had been on the West Coast

for two or three weeks, and Vegas was the last show.

And that one's just always kind of been--

it's always had, like, a different aura around it.

[cheers and applause]

It's in Vegas. It's right there on the strip.

You're looking at all the casinos.

So it was always one of the shows, for me,

that I always looked forward to.

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

- We had never been to the festival.

It was our first time.

There was, in our group, about 27 of us

that were let loose in Vegas for three days.

all: Whoo! - Let's go!

- It just had a great feel to it.

[country music playing]

The festival grounds would just open up to the stage.

There were bleachers and families

that had young kids on the grassy areas.

I remember the police across the street saying, you know,

"Have a great time, guys. Stay safe."

- Y'all ready a night or what? [cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

- The fans that are there

are always pretty polite to police.

I was assigned to our central intelligence unit

as a detective.

It was actually my day off,

but I figured it's a good overtime gig to pick up

because it's country music, and I love country music.

It was a fairly large event, so they needed officers.

[cheers and applause]

- We had 20,000 people at that event.

For a concert that size over a three-day period,

you have between 50 and 60 Metro personnel working.

For a crowd that is peaceful,

it doesn't require much more than that

to keep the event safe.

[indistinct chatter]

- It was my first day of work as a police officer,

and I was assigned to the Strip Area Command,

which is where the concert was being held.

My dad is an officer as well,

so he was working overtime at that event.

- Sergeant Palmer right there.

- We got a couple of moments of free time from our day,

and I got to actually go say hi to him

and take a picture with him for my first day of work

as a police officer.

♪ ♪

- Brady, my trainee, we had gone down,

spent some time with his dad,

give him a chance to see his son in uniform,

just kind of shaking hands,

you know, and meeting some people.

♪ ♪

[engine turns over]

I'd always had a huge desire to be a police officer.

I grew up homeless for a period of time,

went in the military,

and then I started fighting in the martial arts.

I go pro, fight my first fight in Vegas here.

- Good job by Josh.

- This kid has a heart of a lion, for sure.

- And then 13 years later, here I am.

You never get away from that fighter mentality.

All of my trainees, they'll tell you I'm aggressive.

They'll tell you that I'm hard.

I'm not very approachable.

But when push comes to shove, I'm always there.

And with Brady, you know, for sure,

he was my responsibility.

I mean, absolutely no question about it.

And that day, you know, it was a typical day.

♪ ♪

- October 1, 2017, I woke up in Vegas.

And I thought it was the best thing ever.

I'm like, a whole decade since I've been through cancer,

and losing my hair, complications,

congestive heart failure from chemotherapy.

Let me go to, like, some of the bald ones.

My husband and I went to Mandalay Bay.

There might be more under there.

We're kind of just recounting when all of the odds

were really stacked against us.

There was definitely times I didn't know

if I was gonna be alive to celebrate my 30th birthday.

And here we were a decade later,

and I just remember I kept saying a decade,

because it sounded so amazing to say it.

Look how far we've come.

And this, you know, ten-year mark,

we happened to be in this awesome,

three-day music festival.

[cheers and applause]

What a great way to celebrate.

♪ ♪

- Military, fire, EMS, police,

you know, we listen to country music

because we deal with so much wrong in this world

that country music and the storytelling--

it's the selflessness and helping others

and hard work and I think it's that culture

that country music breeds.

[indistinct chatter]

I worked down in, like, Logan Heights in San Diego,

which is, kind of, like, a big gang area,

so, you know, we go to a lot of shootings, stabbings.

Been to many homicides.

♪ ♪

Especially in our line of work,

the job is so stressful,

and it can be overbearing sometimes.

[siren whoops]

Not a lot of marriages make it.

And I love being married, and I love having my kids.

[chuckling] So you know, I try to do everything

I can to make it work.

♪ ♪

I try to find positive outlets

from the compounding stress and trauma,

like a mental health day and hanging out with my wife.

She grew up on kind of the '90s

pop and alternative music,

and I was just a country bumpkin,

listening to the country music.

And I was able to convert her over.

You know, with everything to lose with my wife,

it's important to kind of let loose

and kind of realize that, you know, I can be

somebody other than, you know, what my job is.

[indistinct chatter]

- The first day, which was that Friday,

I already felt out of place.

I grew up in South Central LA.

I grew up in the hood.

My family was in gangs, and I seen a lot of the violence.

And I'm a Black kid

and I'm listening to country music.

My kids hated it. Like--[chuckles]

To the point they were like,

"Dad, can we listen to something else?"

People gave me shit for it all the time.

Black folks don't go to country concerts.

It's only white folks.

The lyrics Jason Aldean made for "You Make It Easy"...

- ♪ You're my inspiration ♪

♪ Girl, you take me places ♪

♪ Put the words right into these songs ♪

- He had that one girl who

no matter what, when she was around,

all of his problems just kind of just disappeared.

- ♪ You're my sunshine in the darkest days ♪

♪ My better half, my saving grace ♪

♪ You make me who I want to be ♪

- Country music is like the woman of my dreams.

When you're around, like, all my problems just disappear.

[Jason Aldean's "You Make It Easy"]

♪ ♪

I mean, the music was like-- that was my getaway.

I'd transport myself somewhere else.

Never before in my life have ever thought I would

have, like, a pair of cowboy boots.

I even have a cowboy hat.

I just ended up going, like, this full ensemble.

That was my first country concert.

I was excited.

I was like, "All right, let's do this."

[cheers and applause]

- Y'all stay up now. You hear?

- [indistinct]

- I lean on my friends for everything.

[soft upbeat music]

The friend that I was with in Vegas, Carrie,

she and I met in college.

Our friendship was built on three shared interests:

country music, nachos, and margaritas.

♪ ♪

This particular girls' trip, for me,

I had been married one year,

and I was planning to start a family soon.

And for Carrie, it was a big deal, too.

She had just gotten engaged

and was starting to plan a wedding.

So it was one last hurrah with my girlfriend

before we had to settle down and raise kids.

♪ ♪

[indistinct chatter]

- I'd never been to a country festival.

That was my first one.

My dad was like-- he's a hard charger.

All we listened to growing up was rock and roll.

That was it.

My girlfriend's name is Gianna.

I bought Gianna a ticket for the weekend.

Everyone's dancing, everyone's singing.

But I don't really like to dance, to be honest.

[laughing] You know?

I kind of go out there and just do my own thing.

I start--I kind of make a fool out of myself,

you know, just a little bit.

- We were more the type of couple making those memories

and dancing with each other.

And most of the time, I'm just like,

"Parker, what are you doing?"

Because he's like a crazy animal.

He loves to dance on tables.

He likes to get on the bar top, dance on the bar top.

I'm always just, like, looking at him,

and I'm like, "Get down, get down.

You're gonna get in trouble."

I love him, though.

I'm like, "Here's my boyfriend."

[laughs]

- We do have matching ones.

- Yes, we do. - We have this one.

We have-- - This one.

- Like, what else?

Gianna is my twin sister and my best friend.

No one can split us apart.

I love you, I love you.

Twin sister bond is just, like, super special.

We were just enjoying high school and working.

And we were captains for our high school cheer.

And I got asked to homecoming that night

right after cheer practice.

I was like, "Oh, my gosh,"

I was not expecting this at all.

I'm, like, sweaty from cheer practice.

I said yes, of course.

It was definitely giving me a little umph. [chuckles]

And I have to rush to the concert grounds.

[cheers and applause]

- Aldean's soundcheck right there, baby.

Another rocking night in Vegas.

- Thank you! Whoo!

[cheers and applause]

[upbeat country music playing]

♪ ♪

- The festival was winding down on day three.

Crowd was pumped. We were all having fun.

Backstage was a who's who.

There were celebrities there, football players.

And you name it,

it was just rubbing elbows with friends and new friends.

And, basically, country music's family all brought together.

[cheers and applause]

- Would you please give it up

for Big and Rich!

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

- Big and Rich came on, and they brought up

a few military personnel that served.

- Right here, amongst us,

we have our police officers, our firefighters,

our emergency service workers. [cheers and applause]

- And this white kid comes up to me.

And out of nowhere,

he's like, "I didn't your kind liked this music."

And I'm, like, looking, like, "Wait, what?"

You know, I mean, it's music. Like, I love it.

So why can't I be here?

And that kind of just put a damper

on my whole, like, mood.

And then everyone was singing "God Bless America" together.

- Now say it!

all: ♪ God bless America ♪

- And, I mean, they got the whole crowd involved in it.

all: ♪ My home sweet home ♪

- Come on, Vegas, sing!

- There was a little irony in it,

considering there was this uplifting patriotic song,

and I just had someone tell me I didn't belong here.

all: ♪ My home sweet home ♪

- Make some noise! [cheers and applause]

- And that's when they were getting Jason Aldean ready.

- This is Route 91 live on "People" country."

Tonight's headliner, Jason Aldean.

Welcome back. - Thank you.

- Route 91 fans, give it up for Jason!

- See you guys in just a little bit.

It was like any other day, you know.

Our crews were out, working, getting ready for the show.

I actually, kind of, feeling a little under the weather.

I was sick. I had a cold or something.

And I had a doctor come out to my bus

and, sort of, gave me a shot, just to, kind of,

like, get me through the show because it was our last show.

Obviously, you want to give them

the best show you can give them

and hope they leave feeling like

they got their money's worth.

[cheers and applause] - The place just lit up.

There were 20-some-odd thousand people there

to see Jason.

You could feel the crowd giving it back to you

when he said his name.

The place was-- it was just electric.

- We 'bout to set it off, so y'all drink up.

Get ready. Here we go. Let's set it off, baby!

[cheers and applause] [country music playing]

- He comes out, you know, and he always goes big.

And everyone starts freaking out, you know.

Whoo!

♪ ♪

- I remember talking to my wife,

like, "Hey, you know, we're finally gonna see him.

"This is the bucket list item.

"This is the great white buffalo.

This is the guy we've been waiting to see for a while."

So, you know, a spot opens up.

Hey, everyone wants try to get in there.

And we were maybe 40, 50 feet from the front

on the right side, the Mandalay Bay side,

where the standing area was for the pit.

♪ ♪

- ♪ Oh ♪

- At that point, me being discriminated against,

oh, I was like, "Man, I don't give a shit."

I was excited to see Jason Aldean.

Not only did I know all of his songs,

I'm just singing at, like, the top of my lungs

and not caring, like, who is looking at me

or anything like that.

[cheers and applause]

He had just started sing this song,

"Any Ol' Barstool."

[Jason Aldean's "Any Ol' Barstool"]

- He was great.

The music sounded great, the crowd was pumped.

- ♪ Sure I stay till they're all long gone ♪

♪ And I take the long way home ♪

- We were all having fun.

We had a little glass of wine, you know.

Cheers, "Oh, good to see you."

Swapping stories and having a blast.

♪ ♪

But that's when the world changed for us.

- ♪ Ask any ol' barstool ♪

♪ ♪

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

I was out on the thrust.

I was playing a song called "Any Ol' Barstool."

♪ I can finally stretch out in our king size bed ♪

♪ If I make it that far ♪

And I was out there,

and I just kind of kept hearing this popping sound.

And I didn't really know what it was,

but I knew that it wasn't--

it wasn't something I typically heard during a show.

[distant cracking]

♪ Guess you heard I was pedal to the metal ♪

♪ On a downhill slide ♪

We wear ear monitors.

You know, we can't really hear any outside noise, really.

So to me, you know, I honestly felt like,

"Man, there's something going on with our sound system."

Like somebody's got a bad guitar cable

or like a speaker's blown.

[Jason Aldean's "When She Says Baby"]

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

- You know, I look at my wife, and I'm like,

"You know, hey," like, "What do you think that is?"

And she's like, "I don't know. Maybe fireworks."

- I was like, maybe some stupid kids

and doing fireworks or whatever.

♪ ♪

- I'm telling like, my buddy, "Dude, that's fireworks."

And he's like, "Nah, dude,

there's probably a shootout on the Strip."

♪ ♪

- I remember looking up

being like, "I don't see fireworks."

- Is there pyro, you know, explosions

that are supposed to go off in the show?

- We can't do fireworks in Vegas, big boy.

♪ ♪

- I'm looking at my--my guys on the side stage going,

"I don't know what that is.

"but like, fix it, because I can't--

"you know, it's like really annoying

and I can't hear the band."

It was just kind of throwing me off a little bit,

so I was actually kind of getting pissed off at them

because I'm like,

"I don't know what that is, but find it and fix it,"

Still thinking it was something to do with equipment.

[muted cheers and applause]

- I looked up at the stage, thinking,

"Well, he can see what we can't see,"

you know, Jason up on the stage.

So if he's still singing, then everything's okay.

♪ ♪

And--and then, there was a whole nother set of pops.

[Jason Aldean's "When She Says Baby"]

♪ ♪

[extended rapid gunfire] [Jason singing]

- Pop, pop, pop. Pop, pop, pop.

- Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

- Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.

[extended rapid gunfire] [Jason singing]

- We looked at each other because we recognized it,

but we were just not putting, like, two and two together.

Like, you're not expecting it, so you're not--

you're not identifying it immediately.

- My sister and I,

we had a big group of like, 25, 30 of us.

We're just all, like, looking around,

and we're like, what the heck is that?

[crowd chattering]

- I immediately had this pit in my stomach.

I've never held a gun.

But of course, I've seen, like, movies.

I knew that it was gunshots.

- I've been raised around guns my whole--you know,

pretty much my whole life.

I was like, "Oh, shit.

This is gunfire right here."

Everyone kind of hears it.

Jason hears it.

- When I turned around, my bass player

was just kind of looking at me like a deer in the headlights.

And my security guy was on stage at that point,

which he's never on stage.

When I turned around to look at him,

he was just kind of, like, telling me to, like, get down

and move, like, get offstage.

He's, like, waving me offstage.

[gunfire]

- It didn't sink in to us, like,

something was wrong until Jason Aldean's security

ushered him off the stage.

[gunfire] [Jason singing]

[music stops] [crowd chattering]

- So we're all looking like, what the hell's going on?

- Oh, my God. Get down. Get down. Get down. Stay down.

[rapid gunfire]

- And all of a sudden, I just felt, like,

the worst pain of my life hit my face.

My face felt like it was on fire.

I don't even know how to describe the extreme pain.

I just kind of was in shock,

trying to figure out what just happened.

It's weird, because sometimes, it feels like

everything was so slow motion.

And then everything happened so fast at the same time.

- There was this young girl wearing this white top,

and she took a round to the-- to the center of her chest.

This girl's got--got blood coming out of her chest.

[indistinct shouting]

And at that point, like, my wife, she sees

that somebody had gotten shot in the leg,

you know, maybe, like, 10 feet in front of us.

[crowd shouting]

That's when the second volley of gunfire happens.

[clock ticking]

[rapid gunfire] [screaming]

- He's been shot!

- Any drinks I had before were gone.

The adrenaline dump hits, and I'm just--

I'm instantly sober.

- Get down. Get down. Get down.

- And we're all laying on the ground.

I try to, like, have my wife between me and this girl,

and I'm still trying to put pressure on her chest.

[shouting, screaming]

- There were bullets hitting the stage, ricocheting.

[rapid gunfire]

We watched the people fall in the crowd.

And it was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And it was too many.

People were dropping at a large rate.

[rapid gunfire]

[rapid gunfire]

- It was very hard to hear where it was coming from

because of the echo.

[rapid gunfire]

I had no clue that I was hit.

I just thought someone literally stomped on me,

because I, like, lunged forward.

And it was very like the movies,

how it shows where, when someone gets shot,

your ears go numb.

[high-pitched ringing]

Just buzzing in your ear.

And it felt like I couldn't move my back at all.

I was just like, "I don't know where my sister is.

I don't know where Parker is."

Everything just went into a blur.

I didn't know my sister Natalia was shot.

She wasn't right next to us.

Parker pushed me to the floor.

And he said, "I love you.

"I don't know if this is gonna be

the last time I'm gonna talk to you, but I love you."

- I laid directly on top of her

just to kinda--I-- honestly to protect her.

I did, like, a bear hug around her kind of,

like, full--as much body mass I can get around her.

I gotcha. I gotcha.

I gotcha, honey. Hold on to me.

Oh. [sighs]

I remember laying there, and...

I remember the sounds of the--the screaming.

[screaming]

- Hey, follow me-- - Get up.

Cathy, get up!

- I'm like, someone's in here.

Someone snuck in, like, MAC-10s or a MP7,

somewhat concealable, and some automatic.

And someone's in here,

just mowing people down.

[rapid gunfire]

They're fucking everywhere. They're everywhere.

[rapid gunfire]

[screaming]

- Lay down!

- That's when I kind of felt, like, the metal.

It kind of felt like a metal, like,

medicine ball dropping on my hip,

like a wave felt through my body.

- John didn't know what was going on.

I knew exactly when she got hit,

because it was like a--

when I was laying on top of her,

I could feel her body almost, like, jolt.

I remember opening my eyes like this

and going, "Oh, shit."

- I just remember looking on the ground beneath me,

and I saw, like, a puddle of blood.

And all I remember seeing was just,

like, the moon in the puddle.

I have no idea what is going on.

[chatter, shouting]

[dramatic music]

[clock ticking]

[rapid gunfire]

[screaming]

- At that point, I was like, "OK.

"This is it. This is--this is where I--

"this is where I'm gonna-- this is where I'm dying,

right here."

I remember closing my eyes, holding on to her,

and I just remember, "Hey, it's gonna be OK.

"It's gonna be OK. I love you. I love you.

I love"--I just kept repeating, "I love you, I love you,

I love you, I love you."

- I knew that I was critically injured.

And I also knew that I was, like,

in a dire emergency situation.

- What's going on? [gunfire]

What's going on?

What's going on?

- And I heard people screaming and crying

and begging for help.

[screaming]

Those human cries are so loud

in my mind and heart.

They tore me apart listening to them.

When they say, like, your life flashes before your eyes,

it's like that moment, and you think of everything

you've been through.

And I remembered all the times,

especially in those last ten years,

where like, the odds were not in my favor,

where doctors said they didn't know

if I was gonna survive,

and I proved them wrong

and I came back each time stronger,

and I thought, "Tonight is no different.

"Like, you have to pull it together.

"You cannot let yourself fall apart.

"You did not survive ten years of cancer to die here tonight,

if you have anything to do with it."

I wished that for everybody around me,

through those cries and the gunshot that, like,

we're gonna be OK.

We're gonna get through this.

And when I got up to run,

like, you realize that it's not gonna be OK,

because the people around you,

some of them aren't going home.

[indistinct radio chatter]

[ominous music]

- I was in our K9 section, and we were training dogs.

My radios had a scan function.

And I hear automatic gunfire.

[indistinct radio chatter] [rapid gunfire]

So what that means is an officer keyed their mic

in the festival grounds

to call out some sort of emergency.

And I see that it's Convention Center area command.

- Does anybody have eyes on the shooter?

- And my mindset is,

we have an active shooter on the strip.

We were still in uniform.

I said, "Grab your stuff. Let's go."

[indistinct radio chatter]

- I knew immediately what it was.

You know, prior military-- I've heard it before.

There's a certain sound when you hear a round go off

and it's trapped between buildings

and it travels up a corridor.

And that's exactly what we heard.

There's no question. We're leaving right now.

[sirens wailing]

- What I'm hearing on the radio is active shooter

at this property, at New York New York.

Active shooter at MGM.

We have an explosion here.

A coordinated attack on Las Vegas

is what it feels like.

- 790 control.

- I thought it was a terrorist attack.

Las Vegas is a prime target.

It's the entertainment capital of the world.

At any given time, there's millions

of people visiting the city.

- It was almost a surreal feeling.

Being a rookie,

that was the first major call that I have ever had.

[rapid gunfire]

[tires screeching]

- Gate 7. Shotguns needed at Gate 7.

[rapid gunfire]

- It sounded like being in combat.

[rapid gunfire]

- Get back!

- We've got, I want to say, five or seven vehicles

all lined up, overheads are on.

We all get out of the car.

And you can hear the screaming from the other side

of the wall.

[screaming]

First thing you start hearing

is that people are going down in the crowd.

[sirens wailing]

[rapid gunfire]

- It definitely sounded like there was multiple guns,

because the pitch of the gun was different.

[rapid gunfire]

So we thought, "Oh, do we have somebody

on both sides of the venue?"

[rapid gunfire]

- I just yelled, "Where is it coming from?"

- At this point, we start figuring out,

"OK, the gunfire is coming from the hotel."

- I took my binoculars

I kind of scanned up and down the Mandalay Bay.

And I can see the shooter actually,

in, like, a shooting platform.

And you could see him--

like, the gun rocked back and forth in his hands.

♪ ♪

I remember flipping over to the channel and saying,

"Hey, he's in the Mandalay Bay,"

trying to get that radio traffic out.

[sirens wailing]

[rapid gunfire]

- All of a sudden, you start seeing holes

appear inside the vehicles.

So everybody starts dropping, because now,

we're aware we're being shot at.

[indistinct radio chatter] [sirens whooping]

We didn't realize it, but by placing the vehicles there,

you know, the overhead lights, the noise

drew the fire of the shooter.

[rapid gunfire]

- The bullets were just pinging all around us.

You can just see the asphalt just launching up.

[rapid gunfire]

[indistinct shouting]

[sirens wailing]

- We gotta retreat back here.

- And I just remember grabbing my neck...

- And kind of, like, falling back.

It was like a burning sensation.

[rapid gunfire]

- I was taking cover behind a vehicle.

And all the gunfire was just raining down all around me.

And that's when a bullet hit me.

- I just kind of looked down at my arm hanging there,

and blood just started pouring down

and it was all over my pants

and it was falling onto the street.

- I was-- [sighs]

I was pretty sure that that round had entered his lung.

I thought the kid was gonna die.

[somber music]

♪ ♪

- My wife's eight months pregnant at the time.

You know, she's crying and, you know, going to pieces.

We didn't know if somebody was backstage with a gun.

I mean, all I could think about

was somebody just walking up

and, you know, popping all of us right there.

You know, I noticed every time he would shoot,

there would be a gap,

you know, I guess when he was reloading

or grabbing a new gun.

And so the next break,

we got up, started going to the bus.

That was the only place I could get inside,

lock the door,

and kind of hunker down somewhere.

So we're running.

And we got about halfway up the side of the bus.

He started shooting again.

And my wife just kind of froze up and--and dropped.

And I just grabbed her under the arms

and carried her up to the door.

- We crawled in the bus and we sat down on the floor

and my wife was sitting next to me

and I was just trying to calm her down.

You could hear bullets flying by

and--and I guess-- I guess the bus we were in got--

got shot a few times.

Like, 15 times.

- The front of my bus took two, three, four rounds,

and then the side, maybe four to six rounds.

I put my wife-- we had a friend of hers

that was there with us--

I put them in the back, in the shower,

basically in the very back of the bus.

Then I just kind of, like, belly crawled up the hallway

into the front.

Somewhere that's really kind of your safe place,

you still don't feel safe.

It's just a helpless feeling, man.

- My wife, Jenna, she's worried

about Wake, our baby.

I said, "Girl, Wake is in the Mandalay Bay.

He's in the safest place in the entire planet Earth."

Then I got a text message asking me if I was in my room.

And I said, "No, I'm down here with Jenna.

What's up?"

And they said

my kid's on the same floor as the shooter.

My kid's with our babysitter next door to the shooter.

The shooter had every room around us

except the two that we had.

I couldn't breathe, you know?

The only reason they were there was because I brought them.

♪ ♪

Yeah. Yeah, I did it.

I'm the reason they were in Vegas.

♪ ♪

- Kisses.

- I didn't tell my wife for another four hours.

- Yeah? Kisses?

Thank you.

- As a parent, you--

you know, that's a nightmare situation,

obviously knowing how-- you know,

how protective a mother of any child's gonna be.

You know, probably not telling her at the time

was probably the smart move,

because it'd be hard to stop a mama

from going to get her baby.

[clock ticking] [shouting]

[rapid gunfire] [screaming]

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- At that point, we knew it was coming

from an elevated position, shooting into the crowd.

[rapid gunfire]

- I got mad, like, at that point.

Like, I got mad.

I just--you know, because I'm not gonna die here.

The longer I stay here, the longer I run the risk

of myself becoming another person down

or another statistic.

We need to get out of here.

- Medic!

- I knew I was injured,

but I didn't know how critical it was.

When I finally did look up at the Mandalay Bay...

Just something in me was just like, "I have to go,

or I will come out of here dead."

[shouting]

- Carrie and I, just right away--

I told her, like, "We gotta get out of here."

Based on where the screams were and where people are being

shot around us, it seemed like there must be many shooters,

like, at least a dozen shooters kind of surrounding the venue.

Carrie stopped me.

She said, "We can't lose each other.

We have to stay together."

So we held hands.

And I remember she was scared.

And she--she said so.

[screaming, shouting]

- Gianna was shot.

At that point, I gotta get her the fuck out of here.

I grab onto her hand.

"Oh, it's OK. Here we go."

And that's when that volley of fire stopped.

- He was, like, counting in his head.

I think he was counting, like, the rounds in the mag.

He was like, "We're gonna stay here

for a couple more seconds."

Then once it stopped, he grabbed me and we ran.

- Come on, let's go!

- I had no idea where anybody was.

I said a prayer about my sister.

I was like, "I really hope she's OK."

- I was just worried about her.

I was just like, "I need to call my sister.

I don't know where she is."

It was just people running and screaming,

and people literally all over the floor, like a fishbowl.

- [indistinct] - Where?

[screaming, shouting]

[clock ticking]

[rapid gunfire]

- Another set of rounds started going off.

[screaming, shouting]

There was this girl that got shot.

And she went down, and, like, she didn't get back up.

Like, she got trampled.

And, like, I remember

'cause she had on, like, a white dress.

And that, like, stayed with me because I'm thinking, like,

I couldn't even help this girl.

I couldn't do anything.

You know what? Fuck this. I'm out of here.

Let's just run. Stay down. Let's run.

And that next round stopped.

And then, like the flip of a switch,

me and, like, 22,000-plus people

are running for our lives.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- I'm seeing just people screaming bloody murder,

running like chickens with their heads cut off.

[rapid gunfire] [screaming]

♪ ♪

We were running through people.

We were jumping up and over people.

I'm screaming now.

I'm like, "Get the fuck out of my way.

She's been shot."

Literally, it was like-- it was like spreading the seas.

- The volley fires are still coming.

[rapid gunfire]

[shouting]

- There was a fence all around the venue.

And we couldn't find any exits.

There was no logical place to get out of the venue.

Finally, the fence gets knocked over,

and we were able to get into the dirt parking lot.

But then there's another fence.

And there's nowhere here to hide.

It's like, how do we get out of here?

- [crying]

- I have a lot of blood on my left side of my body.

I knew that I needed to get to the hospital.

I knew that my life depended on it.

And seeing a body on the ground

that you knew was shot and killed--

gates had been knocked over.

Fences had been knocked over.

Like, it's all coming to me, hitting me.

I'm gonna pass out.

[screaming, shouting]

- My adrenaline was so high.

But I was just flight for life.

It's just run for your life until you can't no more.

But I knew there was something wrong with my leg.

Then I looked down, and my whole pant leg

was just covered in blood.

My heart dropped. My adrenaline was done.

I was so young, and I didn't want to believe,

like, something like this was happening.

I kept telling myself, like, this is--this is not real.

This is not real.

[tense music]

- Seeing that blood, I'm freaking out.

I can't--I can't lose this woman.

Like, she-- you cannot die on me.

At this point, my dad called me.

♪ ♪

[sirens wailing]

- I can hear the escalation and de-escalation in his voice,

like, almost like a roller coaster

going up and down.

It was frantic.

You can hear shots going off in the background behind him.

[rapid gunfire]

- I'm screaming at him,

"They're fucking shooting at us."

He's telling me, "Hey, I'm coming, buddy.

I'm coming. I'm coming."

And...

[sniffles] I remember...

I remember the tone in his voice.

He said, "Don't worry, buddy.

I'm gonna be there as fast as I can."

[soft music]

♪ ♪

Everyone--you know, growing up as kid,

everyone asks you, who's your favorite superhero?

You can tell them Spider-Man, Superman, Batman--

like, you know, like, normal kid stuff.

My superhero is my dad.

And you don't realize that until...

you're in a situation where you're like,

this is fucking life or death.

[sirens wailing]

- I went as fast as my car would actually go.

Our kid was involved in it, and our son's girlfriend

and her twin sister.

They were all involved in it, so it became very personal.

It's a very weird line as a parent,

trying to balance that with being a SWAT officer.

Do I go to my child?

Or do I go and mitigate the threat

and stop it from committing more violence on other people?

People breached the fence, and they were running

across active runways on McCarran Airport.

Tropicana was getting active shooter calls.

Mandalay Bay, Monte Carlo--

there is active shooter calls up and down the strip.

[indistinct radio chatter]

- I made the decision.

I had to put the personal stuff aside

and go and stop that threat from hurting others.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

[sirens wailing]

- I landed pretty much on the north side

of the Mandalay Bay.

At that point in time, it was just me.

I made the decision to--to dress out,

grab what gear I needed to, some breaching tools,

and start my way into the casino.

- When I got there, I met another SWAT officer there.

He was gearing up as well.

We had people running past us,

saying that people were getting shot,

there were people down.

- I arrived to the Mandalay Bay,

and I see two plainclothes detectives for our agency

that show up ready to go.

And I create this strike team.

- I came across a few other officers

that actually teamed up with me.

[indistinct shouting]

We identified at least a potential suspect

up in one of the rooms.

And that's where we're gonna go.

As we started to go up, it was pretty quiet in the elevator.

We weren't sure what we were getting into.

[elevator beeping]

We took up a little bit of a fighting position

in case the elevator doors opened up,

and we actually encountered gunfire.

We were willing to lay it all out.

The amount of devastation that came out of that room--

I don't think there was any one of us

that thought we were coming out the same way that we went in.

♪ ♪

[elevator dings, doors whir]

[rapid gunfire]

- If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna help somebody.

Keep your head down and run that way.

- I can't say what made me decide to go back in.

But something in me was like, it's the right thing to do.

- Any decision's better than no decision.

- So I'm starting to get first aid to people.