When a gunman opened fire on concertgoers on Sunday night at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, country music singer Jake Owen was standing only 50 feet away from the stage.
The 36-year-old musician spoke out during an interview with Fox News about the fatal incident.
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“When the shots started being fired, at first I thought it was pyrotechnics,” Owen said.
Owen performed right before Jason Aldean, who was on stage at the time of the shooting.
Suddenly, Owen noticed bullets ricocheting “off of the top of the stage and on the stage,” and he then “noticed people literally being shot.”
“It was pretty chaotic,” Owen said. “People were running in all directions.”
At least 50 people were dead and more than 400 were hospitalized. It has been described as the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history.
The terrorist fired down on the concertgoers from a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Just as the police entered his room, the gunman died from a self-inflicted gunshot.
With more than 22,000 people at the show on Sunday, Owen says that it is a “miracle more people were not injured.”
“It was a perfect angle. You have a sea full of people out there and a guy that sounded like a fully automatic rifle. There was no chance for a lot of people to get out of the way,” he said.
Owen went on to offer his gratitude for the swift response of the law enforcement officials and first responders for “putting their lives on the line to keep our lives safe during a moment like this.”
“We put on concerts to take people away from the day-to-day life, to bring them to a happy place and this isn’t by any means what’s supposed to happen at these things,” Owen said. “I think us, as a community, aren’t going to let this bring us down either. We’re going to continue to do what we do… because this isn’t what our America is supposed to be like. We’ve got to fix this.”
Owen is one of many country music stars opened up with their reaction to the Route 91 Harvest Festival Shooting. Many have taken to social media to express their condolences to the victims and their families.
Photo Credit: Twitter / @jakeowen
