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Silver Linings Amid Hellfire at Las Vegas Harvest Festival

“Americans do not buckle and submit by any stretch. Countless episodes of galvanized willpower evolve from deep tragedy…”
The extent of competing theories stemming from the Las Vegas murderous rampage on October 1, 2017 is not nearly enough to overshadow the chapters depicting ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances who, somehow, found it in their hearts to overcome the morose massacre on the grounds of the Route 91 Harvest Festival. Despite a massive fusillade whizzing by, pocking the asphalt, and penetrating flesh of country music buffs, heroics, strong-will, champion spirit, and warrior mentality kicked-in.

Among the approximately 22,000 concert-goers in Las Vegas were police officers, firefighters, soldiers, and all manner of public service-oriented occupations, enjoying the show like everyone else…until the phantom inhaled breath and exhaled a steady stream of terror. The torrent of bullets raining down on that many human targets is macabre. Although the ugliness of the shooter was stark, silver linings shone through.

When the Mandalay Bay misfit’s darkness loomed over the country fans, public safety officials became beacons for over 20 thousand citizens, doing as they’ve always done.

Cops in the Crowd

Whether country music enthusiasts or just reveling with friends at the venue, off-duty cops representing law enforcement departments from all across the country were patrons among the crowd. At the first cracks of gunfire and pursuant pandemonium, these public servants kicked into high gear and deployed training aspects to diminish the damages being inflicted. Directing ticket holders to safety, dragging or carrying the wounded to positions of cover/concealment, while telegraphing tactical maneuvers all culminated in life-saving efforts. While 59 perished, many were saved from extinction.

Off-duty Los Angeles police Officer Mitchell Tosti was in the crowd and managed to save 20-year-old Cassidy Huff, a cancer patient whose hair has yet to re-grow. As if her life isn’t already impacted by one deadly killer, a shooter spraying the concert crowd with bullets was Huff’s latest life-threatening encounter. Thanks to Officer Tosti, Huff will have the opportunity to deservedly embrace survivorship, perhaps while twirling a new coif.

https://twitter.com/BackThePolice/status/917533604988596224

Las Vegas Metro police Officer Charleston Hartfield was off-duty and in the concert crowd enjoying country in the country for which he vowed when he was felled by the shooter’s bullets. There are countless stories from survivors who saw, heard and were figuratively or literally touched by Officer Hartfield when the music stopped and panic emanated.

Manhattan Beach, California police Officer Rachael Parker was off-duty and reveling in the crowd when she was struck by gunfire, ultimately succumbing to her wounds in a hospital gurney.

Off-duty police Officer Tom McGrath was there and saved a young man who already saved 30 lives from the concert grounds. Officer McGrath rescued Jonathan Smith after he saw him felled by bullets, bleeding and beckoning with his eyes. Per Mr. Smith, once they were both relatively removed from the line of fire, Officer McGrath literally stuck his finger in a hemorrhaging bullet wound suffered by Smith. Mr. Smith went on TV to share his experience.

Another country music patron was saved by a policeman and diligently seeks to meet her rescuer. “I saw his face, and I’m going to try to go down to Metro [police] and see if I can find him and look at pictures, because he saved me. I wish I can find him. I’m going to try and find him and tell him thank you,” said Gail Davis who attended the concert. She refers to a Las Vegas cop who pulled her and her husband to safety and stood over them until he was sure they were safe indoors. That unidentified cop ran out to pluck more lives from the hellfire.

A retired Reno, Nevada policeman, Derek Cecil, was in the concert crowd and the once-a-cop-always-a-cop mentality kicked in after he heard the distinct successive sounds of gunfire. Cecil saved several people that evening and kept returning to the chaotic scene and against the pushing throngs of people running rampantly.

https://twitter.com/tim_lajoie/status/914915103702691840

Chance meetings arose, too. Cecil formed an impromptu partnership with a retired California Highway Patrol cop with whom he helped drag people from harm’s way. Before the country acts commenced, the two police retirees never even knew the other existed. They do now.

Seguin, Texas deputy police Chief Bruce Ure was a concert ticket-holder who, as the sounds of gunfire and volcanic panic evolved, swung into action. He credits his years of police training for his relative control and command of a seemingly untenable incident.

People from all walks of life were salvaged by cops from police agencies far and wide. The only thing which mattered most that day was humanity, nothing else. One already committed himself to hell, but all others warranted salvation.

Forward-thinking Firefighters

The Long Beach Fire Department announced that 10 of their firefighters were off-duty (one retiree) and in the concert crowd, spontaneously tending to wounded parties. According to fire Chief Michael DuRee, one of his firefighters quickly and keenly sprung into action by grabbing a ladder and fastening it against/over a concert-floor barricade so that hundreds could flee the target area safely.

According to The Grunion, Chief DuRee intimated, “It’s safe to say that our public safety folks from Long Beach – and everywhere else for that matter – sprang into action when the incident went down.”

Los Angeles Firefighter Robert Hayes was off-duty, attending the concert with his wife, when the ordeal unfolded. Stifling his emotions, Hayes explained how strangers were helping strangers, and how heroism was as rampant as the bad guy’s bullets.

A group of Penhold firefighters/paramedics vacationing from Canada were at the festival. Thus we see international public safety assets pitching-in with safeguarding pedestrians from the shooter’s wrath as well as triage for the wounded.

Rancho Cucamonga, California firefighter Mike Kordich was shot in the arm as he was administering CPR to another victim on the fairgrounds.

Both on- and off-duty, Las Vegas-area firefighters were also among the country concert revelers. During the bump-stocked stream of bullets, two of 12 Las Vegas firefighters were reportedly performing CPR, exposed on the concert grounds, and were shot also. As the infusion of bullets found targets, the profusion of bravery targeted salvation for starkly frightened country fans. Testament after testament to oath transpired. Courageous actions under-fire needed neither a script nor a director.

Adriann Murfitt, 35, traveled all the way from Anchorage, Alaska to attend the concert. He was shot in the neck and, although tended to by a firefighter and a doctor in the crowd, did not survive. The toll on public safety must weigh heavy, and expectations of PTSD is not a judgment but a fact borne of soldiering against inexplicable crises.

A Fox News reporter attending a Las Vegas firefighters’ union meeting after the Route 91 Harvest Festival raised the issue of mental health for first responders. Indeed, a valid factor at a time when unconscionable misdeeds were visited upon so many, including uniformed public servants.

Relative to firefighters/paramedics, skilled health professionals at local hospitals in Vegas are critical links in the chain of salvation. They, too, have their hands in correcting carnage:

https://twitter.com/RouserNews/status/915654471753125888

Military Personnel

Widespread media coverage often makes folks turn away from scenes of carnage. Yet, although strangers to each other, a young military serviceman bodily blanketed a young woman who had bullet wounds in her body as she lay clumped in the shooter’s trajectory of miniature torpedoes. Like the police and firefighters and nurses in the crowd, service to others bolstered during chaos. The indelible imagery depicts a fusion of eye-welling and heartwarming selflessness in action. The following image illustrates a concert spectator, reportedly a US soldier, whose self-sacrifice to harbor a woman from a hail of bullets epitomizes the heroics at the deadly Las Vegas venue.

Coincidentally, a contingent of United Kingdom soldiers was in Vegas for military training exercises. Upon hearing the succession of gunfire, the entire group ran into the concert crowd, pulling panic-stricken people to safety.

Former US soldiers in the mix gravitated to on- and off-duty cops, tacitly blending as an impromptu search-and-rescue team operating by sheer instincts, ingrained training, and professional experiences. Sometimes the cavalry is on the way; sometimes it is already encamped.

Resilience of Americans

Like the horrid crumbling of the Twin Towers on 9/11/01, American resilience and resolve found its way back to national pride. Reorganizing and rebuilding was always an option, and Americans chose to humbly rebuild Ground Zero and refortify their spirit, calling the new structure Freedom Tower.

Americans do not buckle and merely submit by any stretch. Countless episodes of galvanized willpower evolve from deep tragedy:

Planning for the June 2018 Carolina Country Music Fest in Myrtle Beach, S. Carolina, law enforcement and concert promoters are revisiting safety measures for its outdoor country music concert. Large-scale events such as the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas tend to harden the defenses of similar venues.

As Bill O’Reilly emphasized the aftermath in Las Vegas, it is the price we pay for our freedom. With deep respect, grace and humility for those who lost loved ones at the Vegas venue, it remains a two-sided coin having imbalanced values. Americans enjoy their freedoms, and some mangled minds are among the citizens exploiting such liberties.

You can bet there’ll be off-duty cops, firefighters, active and veteran military personnel, nurses, doctors, generally all manner of human servant types present at a multitude of public events across the United States.

As Myrtle Beach police Captain Joey Crosby told The Post and Courier, “Whenever we plan special events we’re looking at all possibilities, from someone tripping and needing a Band-Aid on up to events similar to what happened in Las Vegas. We’re talking about lessons learned from previous events as we begin planning for the next music festival.” What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas.

The Myrtle Beach venue expects approximately 30,000 spectators, roughly 10 thousand more than were present for the Route 91 Harvest Festival.

As our society is subjected to maniacal misdeeds of unhinged aggressors, public safety galvanizes game-plans, boosts protective measures, and tightens tactics.

In the name of American liberty and human spirit, it would be a treat to have Eric Church pay homage and sing his Route 91-inspired song “Why Not Me” to set the tonal quality of fun-loving country music enthusiasts from all walks of life congregated together.

Through tears streaming from behind dark sunglasses while performing at the Grand Ole Opry a mere few days after the Vegas shooting, Eric Church intimated recollections of the Route 91 Harvest Festival crowd: “That was my crowd, they came for me. They came from all over the country.” Indeed they did, from all over the country to hear the melodious country licks and lyrics reciprocated with western boot clicks.

Eric Church played the night of September 29, roughly 48 hours before a gunman in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino unloosed a torrent of vileness from his 32nd floor window.

A succession of gunfire impeded the show. Lives were snuffed and irrevocably impacted. Eric Church choked back tears when he said “There is no amount of bullets that can take away…none!” Much like a cop is shaped by what he/she witnesses in the front-row seats and among the throngs of spectators, musical artists’ material is surely influenced by life circumstances, projecting emotion upon fans’ hearts.

Mr. Church said “that night, something broke in me…and the only way I fix anything that is broken in me is with music.” So he sat down and penned “Why Not Me” to describe his brokenness stemming from the Route 91 Harvest Festival debacle.

Why Not Me

“Why you and why not me”? Eric Church wrote it, sung it, and cried it out. To some degree, I relate to Church’s lyrical sentiments. As a cop, every call having to do with a dead child or helpless and abused elderly folks engendered the internalized echo similar to Eric Church’s ability to piece together words emanating from jagged edges of a broken heart.

The glue is perhaps the will to forge on, to disallow evil to choke out the lungs, to exhibit the sheer desire to stabilize a shaken society.

Take-aways for me are Eric Church performing “Why Not Me” while mending gaping wounds and a hemorrhaging heart, donning a silver memento police badge draped around his neck. Moreover, the Grand Ole Opry crowd is on its feet before he even starts singing the dedication. Audience expressions exhibit mesmerized fascination and acute focus on a man’s strength and convictions while he croons what many are thinking.

I have pondered and embraced the countless acts of heroism borne of this unspeakable event. Each courageous actor seeking to shield vulnerable concert attendees from the destruction of a depraved individual wholeheartedly exuded the words Why Not Me.

As a policeman, looking in the eyes of other cops, firefighters and paramedics attending some gruesome scenes and restoring some semblance of order…I always thought despite all this utter chaos, look at these men and women selflessly placing themselves in the mix of crisis. This is where I’ll always want to be, with this team.

Ultimately, altruism and kindness prevail. An ideal example is Las Vegas Sunrise Hospital waiving all medical costs for every patient brought in from the Route 91 Harvest Festival tragedy:

And the recuperative period while patients are in Las Vegas Sunrise Hospital includes therapy from furry friends specially trained for such a purpose:

Sometimes we come together and are ripped apart, only to come together again in unison…to rebuild what was selfishly breached. When the Mandalay Bay misfit’s darkness loomed over the country fans, public safety officials became beacons for over 20 thousand citizens, doing as they’ve always done.

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Stephen Owsinski

Stephen Owsinski is an OpsLens Content Manager and Contributor. Owsinski is a retired law enforcement officer whose career included assignments in the Uniformed Patrol Division and Field Training Officer (FTO) unit. He is currently a researcher and writer. Follow Stephen on Twitter @uniformblue.
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