Tactical Response To Las Vegas Shooting
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 2 months ago
Here is a remarkable video. Watch it completely.
In this video, you’ll notice at least the following things. Feel free to add to them in the comments. I’m going to address my remarks to the response of the people, not LEOs. I don’t care, per se, about LEOs in this commentary because I’m not focused on LEOs.
The music is loud. Being in such venues under these conditions means that at least one of your senses has been effectively removed because you can’t hear threats. The crowd is densely packed. It was hard to move around when the shooting started.
The reaction is lethargic and extremely delayed. Even when the music stopped and the shooting was identified, the people on the video laughed rather than sought cover or concealment. The venue itself was effectively a confined space, with an overwatch from the hotel (and perhaps other hotels or buildings). This gave a shooter great position to use a long range, standoff weapon in relative safety while he perpetrated his evil.
Even after it was recognized that there was a shooting and they were in danger, the people stopped to take videos, laugh, talk, and variously jibber-jabber and yak about what was happening. With this kind of response, it’s a miracle that hundreds more didn’t die.
Folks, confined spaces are dangerous. They can kill you. You can be trampled, you can be shot, you can be knifed, you can be run over, and you can be assaulted. You are usually hemmed in on one or more sides, and concealment and cover is usually limited in venues like this. Confined spaces also concentrate gases, contaminants and dangerous biological hazards. Here they were in a confined space with no protection, and yet they were lethargic in their response.
Remember the three E’s. Evasion, Egress and Escape. Evade the initial danger, find suitable egress from the danger, and escape the location. Get out without delay. Better yet, avoid crowds like this, and examine the nature of the venue before you ever go. In conditions like this where there is an “observation post,” or conditions are good for one to have been set up, make your escape before anything happens. In other words, begin thinking about your safety at all times and in all locations.
With America behaving like this, with lethargy being the order of the day, and with safety and security being the last thing people consider, and also with the influx of MS-13 members, Islamists and other bad actors across the borders, we are set up for disaster and many more events like this, of much greater magnitude.
Don’t buy the hype or the progressive talking points. Gun control won’t help this situation. With the foundations for civil unrest or even civil war being laid by the deep state, and with the porous sieve that defines our Southern border, this cannot be dealt with simply or with another law or regulation. America needs to think differently about her future.
Do that right now.
On October 2, 2017 at 11:05 pm, Frogdaddy said:
It’s amazing the attachment people have to cellphones nowadays. If it wasn’t for work I’d bust mine with a mallet. Curious if turning off the stage lights might have helped slightly, probably since his angle. I don’t know.
I thought this was interesting embedded in the comments on the Market-Ticker forum:
https://streamable.com/b9sei
A hand “crank”?
On October 2, 2017 at 11:18 pm, TheAlaskan said:
Oh man, I’m sure glad I only have vast freezing forests and darkness and silence to deal with this winter. Oh man.
On October 3, 2017 at 7:39 am, Fred said:
These people’s inability to separate the real from fiction is scary. Everything is a show, an event. I have noticed, in the south particularly the inability to simply sit and talk. Everything must be an entertainment forum fed from some outside source. Very few people have ideas of their minds own creation.
I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t watch TV. All the movies suck. It’s all a (somebody’s) design upon your thought processes. America is being programmed.
In a weird twist their inability to process what was happening and make quick life saving decisions probably saved lives. It might very well have been a stampede otherwise with many many more folks getting injured or killed.
Clearly the average American has “Digital Dementia”. They are walking right through the front gate of the electronic prison control grid and paying for the privilege. They will sit quietly in the FEMA camps and whimper a little as they starve.
On October 3, 2017 at 8:43 am, John C Taylor said:
As Ol’ Remus so succinctly warns repeatedly: “Avoid crowds.”
I believe that the smartphone age has largely killed Situational Awareness for a large portion of the population.
On October 3, 2017 at 8:51 am, JoeFour said:
Found this in the comment section at ZeroHedge:
“… from 4chan:
https://youtu.be/gpMrm1xUJ40
http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/143837839#p143843955
>9:10 reports shooter on 15th floor
>18:10 “shots fired on 29 and 32nd levels”
>18:25 “we are coming out on 32nd floor”
>18:45 “we have a security officer shot in the leg on the 32nd floor”
>19:15 “he shot down the hallway and hit a security guard” (32nd floor)
>19:35 “we’ll need the 29th floor, it sounds like its confirmed there are at least 2 shooters with fully automatic weapons”
>26:30 “about 3 minutes ago a black unknown truck (unidentified) ripped out of the parking lot east of Excalibur heading south to the Delano, it was reported by several people and witnessed by me, keep an eye on it”
>36:10 “He’s over in Tropicana/Motel 6, older white male with fatigues and a black bag, pedestrians say he came from the area of the shooting, he went into the motor home”
>37:15 “theres one ‘WMA’ in black fatigues and a white RV off of Koval and Tropicana, south of”
>41:30 (at Mandalay Bay) “nothing has been evac’d”
>43:05 “…at Reno and Tropicana we might have a possible… I need more units”
>47:10 “…confirming the Mandalay Bay, and Alibaba and Guille’s(?) are the two shooting locations, do we have a third?”
On October 3, 2017 at 9:32 am, Herschel Smith said:
@Joe,
Very interesting. I had suspected so for a number of reasons. The American public will know only what the FBI / CIA / Deep State wants it to know. Anything else will be a “conspiracy theory.”
On October 3, 2017 at 11:36 am, Fred said:
Alibaba and Guilie’s is another area that the shooter was targeting i suspect. There are (were) other casualties there, and being staged for transport at this location from earlier in the audio. The guy in the RV is not a shooter he simply smartly got off the street. Black truck is people smartly leaving. I’m very surprised at the amount of discipline LVPD shows. 29th floor and the luxor turn out to be bad reports. I would have thought that there would be way more erroneous reports and chatter. What’s upsetting is police being told not to help the casualties and then latter asking permission to help them.
SWAT doesn’t do shit until it’s well over just like Orlando. Are they swat or pussies. I’m confused.
Second hour is tricky. I’m fortunate in this case to know Vegas. If you’ve only visited as a tourist or never been it could be wildly confusing. It’s hard as it is to separate bad reports from what is happening. I think new york is simply somebody who got shot entering the property for help and everybody freaking out. Same as paris and maybe others and confirmed at tropicana. Remember, most of the people in the other locations don’t know what has happened at the concert. Anybody who does know is jumpy. I take these reports of running people and some possible original gunshot victims to be the cause of the freaking out at other casinos.
The Feds (FBI) show up right when everything goes crazy. Hmm. Why let a good crisis go to waste when you can turn it into a training exercise. They’re training for war. Oh and EVERYBODY is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO scared. This definitely helps the controllers. Let’s play a game. Name the major hotel/casino that was NOT affected by swat crawling all over the place and freaking everybody out. It’s also as though they are following a play book they have for a multi problem scenario. I’m not saying this is the wrong thing to do. The missing piece is the leadership’s training for a major event on the strip. I think they are following this procedure (that must exist) to an extent.
But we don’t know yet if any of the ‘subjects’ reported will turn out to be involved.
At the end of the second hour it sounds like shots fired at palagio. Is there a third hour anywhere?
On October 3, 2017 at 1:08 pm, Pat Hines said:
There weren’t more than one shooter.
One man did all of it after months of planning.
Most of the wrong shooting directions were due to echoes from the number of very tall buildings in the area of the Mandalay Bay, which I’ve seen many times on visits to Las Vegas (for a variety of reasons other than gambling which I have no interest in, likewise for the “shows”).
A number of the shooter’s rifles had slide fire stocks on them.
Look up “lightning link” for an automatic conversion addition to a standard AR-15 with a semi-auto bolt carrier group.
Look up binary trigger, which is legally sold in the US.
One of the ARs in a photo of the shooter’s guns has a 100 round Surefire magazine in it.
Last, I truly hate “conspiracy theories” that are put out when the simplest facts are available that prove otherwise. “Chemtrails” anyone?
On October 3, 2017 at 1:19 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@Pat,
Your explanations are plausible, and I said all along that he probably didn’t use auto guns, just slide fire stocks. The rate of fire was too erratic. That said, I doubt that anyone really “knows” what they think they know.
For me to know what happened, I’d probably have to be on the scene investigating, unimpeded by anyone, using pictures, all kinds of forensic supplies, reconstruction of the event using video, eyewitness accounts, etc., etc., etc.
On the other hand, we can all trust the state to tell us what happened. They’ve proven so reliable in the past, and all.
Chemtrails are irrelevant and don’t exist and have nothing to do with this discussion.
On October 3, 2017 at 3:10 pm, Burk said:
Way to have compassion, buddy. Compassion for guns that is. Never for victims.
On October 3, 2017 at 3:18 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Ha! Burk. You’re not allowed to comment here. But I’ll allow it this once.
Way to go. You never fail us. Always irrelevant, never understanding the point, always coming up with solutions that have nothing whatsoever to do with any problem.
You do amuse.
On October 3, 2017 at 3:45 pm, Duke_Digger said:
Just a word about suppressors. In the video link provided you can hear why a suppressed rifle wouldn’t have made much difference. First you hear the distant rattle of the muzzle blast,(suppressor might have muffled that effectively) then you can hear the “ding” when rounds are impacting barriers or other obstructions. Once or twice you can hear the “snap”of a close round. Then you also hear the unmistakable “smack” sound of bullets hitting flesh. All these sounds except for the initial muzzle blast would still be heard suppressed of not. Given the shooter’s distance from the impacts the resultant sounds were louder than the muzzle blast.
Thanks Mr. Smith, Its difficult to hear people dying, always will be.
On October 3, 2017 at 3:56 pm, Will said:
A couple of thoughts here:
1) Agreed on the delayed reaction. Those folks needed to MOVE, right fucking now, to either cover or at least concealment. On one of the videos you can here a woman pleading with her bf to leave, and he can be clearly heard saying “We can’t leave yet”. Holy E&E training, batman.
2) The sheer number of video clips available from this event – WHILE the bullets were still flying overhead – is staggering. 20 somethings and 30 somethings are so attached to their cellphones that videoing the event must have been their natural reaction, as opposed to getting the fuck out of Dodge.
On October 3, 2017 at 7:49 pm, Joshua Smith said:
Alcohol. Lot’s of alcohol.
On October 3, 2017 at 7:57 pm, ratchet said:
This crowd reaction is typical. I’ve been in Univ libraries when the fire alarm went off. I’m out the emergency exit and students were still standing around inside, looking at each other wondering if they should leave.
When you walk into a building or an event, note which architectural things are potential cover, note the location of fire extinguishers and defibrilators, normal exits, emergency exits and other potential exits (ie. break a window). I’m expecting bad guys to start using arson: cheap & easy.
On October 3, 2017 at 8:39 pm, Ned said:
The same number of people die every month in gun free Chicago. Where are all the bleeding heart virtue signalers about that?
Regarding “conspiracy theories” how about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dkZN28oYO4
and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oam54y4o6RU
and this: https://www.facebook.com/billy.beck.18/posts/10210446777107143
On October 3, 2017 at 9:39 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Very, very good point Josh. Go out and get sauced, be unprepared to respond. That’s the cost. The cost is high.
On October 3, 2017 at 9:57 pm, Pat Hines said:
I know “chemtrails” have nothing to do with this discussion, that was the point. I suppose I should have indicated sarcasm.
David Codrea has at least one image from the shooter’s room that shows a stack of 14 Surefire 100 round magazines plus one near a rifle that they can be used in, can’t tell if they’re empties or not. That’s $2,835.00 retail in magazines alone, $2,227.50 discounted. Shooter had a number of Daniel Defense DDM4 weapons, which vary in price from $1,700 to well over $2,000.00, I don’t know of a discount available for these, there are short barreled version that must be ATF registered, of course. I don’t know which version the shooter had. I’ve seen several in photographs.
I am assembling as many photos as I can, to preserved them from being “memory holed”.
On October 3, 2017 at 10:04 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Yes. Good Pat. So much money spent on weapons I’ll bet he never fired. I would like to see the collection of pics once you’re through. Much more to come on this.
On October 3, 2017 at 11:24 pm, Blake said:
I had a niece and her husband at that concert. Guy took a round to the head in front of them. Husband pulled wife and other people to the ground and covered them with his body. (he’s a big guy) During a lull in the shooting, they moved under cover. (bus)
My niece posted audio from her phone on Facebook. I’ve heard it once, that’s enough.
As for the shooter, well planned attack, no visible means of support, amassed at least 20K plus worth of weapons and ammo used for the attack. (guesstimate based on what Pat has said) (I originally estimated 12K, minimum, based on number of weapons reported and ammo, which is still a good chunk of change for most Americans)
My first conspiracy theory was of the “Enemies Foreign and Domestic” type. (Yeah, I know, chemtrails)
My real thought is left wing radical cut from the same cloth as the guy who shot up members of the House at the baseball diamond.
But, I want to know how the guy got the money to purchase all these weapons and houses along with being a high roller in Las Vegas.
From what I’ve seen, we only have the word of the estranged brother when it comes to how the shooter got rich and, more than likely, the estranged brother only went by what the now deceased brother told him.
By the way, after hearing the audio of the shooting, I looked for audio of bump fire stocks and the cyclical rate sounded about right. Which is what’s being reported, but, wait and see.
On October 4, 2017 at 5:58 am, DAN III said:
ALCON,
I would like to see:
1. Copies of all of the alleged shooter’s ATF Form 4473s for weapons found in #2 below.
2. A listing of all weapons “found” in the room the “shooter” occupied.
3. A copy of the “shooters” autopsy report, unredacted by fedgov and stategov perps.
BTW….don’t call Paul Ryan’s office for help in obtaining the above.