Las Vegas authorities have released police bodycam footage showing the breach of Stephen Paddock’s hotel room on the night of the October 1 shooting massacre that killed 58 people.
The Associated Press obtained the footage released by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department compliance with a court order issued last week. It shows a team of police officers approaching Paddock’s suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino. The sound of a loud bang can be heard while the officers are still in the hallway.
“Breach! Breach! Breach!” one of the officers says.
The first officer to enter the room had not activated his body camera, but the scene was recorded from the bodycam of an officer following closely behind. The Las Vegas Review-Journal Reports that Sgt. Joshua Bitsko and David Newton followed Levi Hancock, the officer who did not active his camera, into the suite where Paddock was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
An explosive sound can be heard on the footage just after the officers enter the room, but it may have been the result of the breach itself.
“What was the shots fired in here?” an officer can be heard saying.
“They did an explosive … breach,” another officer can be heard saying.
An officer presumed to be Hancock comments that he did not have his bodycam on, and another officer responds by saying, “Mine was on, it got everything you did.”
In the background, officers can be heard commenting on firearms found in the room.
In a press conference earlier this week, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said that police would be releasing video and audio footage from the shooting on a rolling basis for the next several months. The Sheriff noted that authorities had objected to the release of the footage because of the resources required to do so and because it would likely re-traumatize those affected by the shooting.
“We believe the release of the graphic footage will further traumatize a wounded community. For that, we apologize,” Lombardo said in Tuesday’s press conference.
[Featured image: Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department video screenshot]