A Las Vegas police officer is detailing how the cops reacted after first learning of an active shooter at the Mandalay Bay Resort.
Sgt. Jeff Clark was one of the first responders when the gunman, Stephen Paddock, opened fire on concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival killing 58 victims and leaving more than 500 others injured.
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During an interview with Fox 5, Sgt. Clark explained that the police have been extremely focused on handling the task at hand and helping with the investigation.
“Since this has happened, I’ve been telling people that we have been task-oriented,” Clark said. “I don’t think it has sunk in for the people here yet…just because we’re still on a task. We are trying to get this investigation completed.”
On Sunday night, Sgt. Clark explained that he was getting ready for bed right when he received the call alerting him of the active shooter.
“That night, I can tell you, I was just going to bed and the phone rang. Got down there, and you heard all the chaos and the panic on the radio,” he said.
Clark then corrected himself saying that “chaos” was the correct word, instead of “panic” because his fellow officers were steadily working to control the situation.
“Our officers, they were consummate professionals. And there was a calm that we knew it was going to get down. And we were going to do what we could to stop this tragedy from continuing,” he said.
According to Clark, it may be “years” before the authorities learn the truth of why this tragedy occurred.
“We are weeks away from having this investigation completed, and it will be years before anyone fully understands what happened and why it happened.
Clark concluded by saying that the police department will be assessing ways to prevent tragedies like this from happening again.
“As far as our training…any critical incident from what might be considered minor to something catastrophic like this; we are going to sit down and we are going to discuss what went right and what went wrong and how we can improve,” he said.
