ST. LOUIS, MO (KMOV) — A Southeast Missouri man was at the country music concert in Las Vegas Sunday night when a gunman opened fire.
Kent Sisco, from Piedmont, Missouri, was outside the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino when he heard what he thought were gunshots around 9:30-10 p.m.
“We [heard] the pop, pop,” said Sisco. “I turned around and said ‘what’s that’ and my girlfriend said, ‘I think it’s fireworks,’ and I asked, ‘why they would do fireworks in the middle of the song?’ About that time it really opened up, it was very distinguishable automatic gunfire. She turned around and looked from the stage up was rushing toward the back and she just said ‘run!’”
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said the gunman, identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, was on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and fired a barrage of bullets down on the crowd of at least 20,000 people.
“It was very sporadic at first, just pop, pop, pop, pop then it just opened up,” said Sisco.
Sisco said people were running, jumping and climbing over a fence just to get out.
“Just very surreal. There were a lot of bullets coming in there. There is no doubt about that and they just kept coming,” said Sisco.
Authorities Monday morning said more than 50 were killed and hundreds were injured following the shooting.
Sisco said he and his girlfriend were staying at the Tropicana Hotel, right across the street from the concert venue, and hundreds of people took cover there. The hotel was on lockdown for several hours, it was lifted before 7 a.m.
