Jacksonville woman had to take shelter in basement of Tropicana hotel during Las Vegas mass shooting

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville woman described the very moment the SWAT team raided her Las Vegas hotel, seconds after gunfire rang out.

Video shows SWAT officers heading inside the Tropicana Las Vegas hotel Sunday night, just minutes after a gunman shot into a crowd at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival.

Speaking exclusively with Action News Jax, Sheena Carter said she and her friends were vacationing in Las Vegas for the weekend and were in the lobby when the chaos unfolded.

“The SWAT team, the cops were coming down, and one of them yelled, ‘HANDS UP, HANDS UP!’ and we had to hold our hands up. Everyone was panicking, everyone was crying, it was insane. They told us our hotel was a crime scene,” Carter said.

It was a crime scene that covered multiple blocks and hotels. The Tropicana is near the concert venue, leaving Carter within earshot of the gunfire.

“So where the concert was, was directly down the street from our hotel, which was right across the street from Mandalay Bay. The next thing I know, my friend ran into the bathroom, 'We got to go, they’re shooting, they’re shooting, they’re shooting,'” said Carter.

Carter said they were forced to wait inside the basement of the hotel until the all-clear was given.

“We continued to pray. Stayed in faith, that we were going to get out. We had family and friends that we need to get back to, so a lot of our time was spent trying to calm other people down,” Carter said.

Cox Media Group