How The Las Vegas Massacre Unfolded | HuffPost Latest News

LAS VEGAS It was just after 9:40 p.m. when Donny Lee, his wife and some friends watched country superstar Jason Aldean take the stage to close out the Route 91 Harvest festival, a three-day country music celebration that drew fans from around the country to the famed Las Vegas Strip.

Lees group was among the 22,000 people packing the 15-acre open-air venue for three days of country-tinged revelry in the nations most prominent party city. Held in a former parking lot near the Luxor and Mandalay Bay resorts, the festival known as the neon sleepover billed itself as a relatively intimate chance for country fans to see some of their favorite artists in one place. For many attendees, the early fall gathering this year celebrating its fourth anniversary had become an annual tradition. It was the last night of the festival, and the grounds were packed.

When Jason Aldean came up, we were at our seats, standing there, singing, dancing, Lee, who works as an investigator in the Orange County Sheriffs Department and who was off-duty at the time, recalled. As were standing there, we hear the first few gunshots.

Around 10:15 p.m., a few bars into Aldeans 2012 hit When She Says Baby, a rapid series of pops echoed across the festival grounds. The first few were muted, nothing like the rapid sounds many would have immediately recognized as gunfire.

My wife looked at me and asked me what it was, Lee said. I didnt think it was gunshots, because it was too subdued and if it was gunshots it was something small and farther away.

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For a brief moment, the bangs went silent.

Cassie Burgoon, who has traveled from Rancho Cucamonga, California, each year to attend the festival with her mom, heard the initial shots as well. Out of nowhere, everyone heard about five pops and saw a little bit of smoke, and we all looked around thinking maybe it was a firecracker.

I thought to myself, Thats weird, why is someone lighting off fireworks in a big crowd like this? Thats so dangerous, said California-based concertgoer Michaela Gallo.

Aldean continued to play for a few moments before abruptly running backstage. It was then the crowd began to realize something had gone horribly wrong.

There was a little bit of a pause, I would say 10 seconds, a short pause, Lee remembered. Then you heard some rapid fire, the first barrage of rapid fire.

We heard guys behind us say Run, and thats when we knew, Burgoon said. It just kept going and going. The shots never stopped after those first five.

Insane.... this JUST happened. #PrayForVegas pic.twitter.com/RWgjFW7BHy

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Insane.... this JUST happened. #PrayForVegas pic.twitter.com/RWgjFW7BHy
Luke (@LukeBroadlick) October 2, 2017

A chaotic scene on the festival grounds

Chaos broke out as fans scrambled to escape the shots raining down on them from seemingly all directions. Stephen Craig Paddock , 64, had opened fire on the crowd from his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, roughly 400 yards from the festivals main stage.

Police believe Paddock, who checked into the hotel on Thursday, smashed two of his rooms windows with a hammer or similar object, positioned two rifles with scopes on tripods in front of those windows and began firing. He set up cameras inside and outside of his hotel room, possibly to monitor who was entering the hallway. Equipped with more than 20 guns and a large cache of ammunition, Paddock fired off hundreds of rounds in a span of roughly nine minutes. After some time, Paddock is believed to have turned one of his guns on himself, taking his own life before authorities could reach his room.

Down on the festival grounds, people screamed as they fled the stage area, some throwing themselves to the ground to avoid the bullets. Some people crawled, looking for anything they could use to shield themselves. Others made a run for the fences, hauling themselves and others over the barriers separating the grounds from the rest of the strip.

Lee, the off-duty cop, started yelling at people: We need to go, we need to start moving. Other concertgoers were telling people in the crowd to stay down, but 18 years of experience told Lee he had to keep moving.

My wife was behind a trash can, and as shes behind it, the trash can got hit by what I can only assume was a bullet, because there was nobody around and the trash can gets jolted away from her, Lee said. You hear the bullets hitting the bleachers and all around you.