Las Vegas Police Release Route 91 Harvest Festival Shooting ‘After-Action Review’
Following the shooting at the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, Nev., local police and other first responders and emergency personnel have studied the response to the tragedy, hoping to learn from the incident. On Wednesday (July 10), Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo shared the results of that investigation: his department's "after-action review."
Lombardo calls the newly released report "our textbook on our response" (quote via the Associated Press) to the Oct. 1, 2017 shooting, in which 58 people died and more than 800 more were injured. The document includes 93 recommendations, regarding instructions for pre-festival preparation, advice about who and what should be on hand at the event itself, and tips for responding to a similar mass casualty event, should one ever occur. According to Lombardo, Las Vegas police have already implemented 40 percent of the recommendations, which apply to events that draw at least 15,000 people.
Every Las Vegas police officer above the rank of sergeant is now required to read the report, though Lombardo says, "We hope we never have to use these procedures that we are putting in place." He also hopes that the document will be useful to other emergency personnel in creating their own action plans, in addition to the presentations that Las Vegas police have made to law enforcement officials throughout the country and elsewhere about their experiences on the night of the shooting.
A 158-page document, the new report was authored by Capt. Kelly McMahill and Detective Stephanie Ward, who also studied other mass casualty events in addition to the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting while preparing the report. A similar, 61-page "after-action report" from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Clark County Fire Department and Las Vegas police was released in August of 2018, but the new document, Lombardo explains, is more about his department's internal "preparedness, response and recovery."
The 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting remains the deadliest non-war mass shooting in U.S. history. In August of 2018, the FBI closed its investigation into the tragedy without uncovering a motive. Numerous lawsuits have been filed in relation to the event.
Remembering the Route 91 Harvest Festival Shooting Victims