Las Vegas, United States - January 01, 2025 01/01/2025 04:00 pm (GMT-0800) Las Vegas – Transcript: ( Background Sounds ) Okay, good afternoon. My name is Kevin McMahill, the Sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. I'm here to give you really a brief update on what occurred on Las Vegas Boulevard this morning. As you know, we just had our New Year's Eve event where we successfully protected the city where over 400,000 people were here last night. And that changed this morning at about 8:40 when a 2024 Tesla Cybertruck pulled into the area of valet of the Trump International Hotel. Very quickly thereafter that the driver who was the sole occupant of the truck, we saw what looked like maybe some sort of smoke and then the truck exploded. I'm going to-- smoke was coming from inside of the truck after we noticed the flash and the explosion and I'm going to show you that first video. That's the Cybertruck parked right in front of the doors. ( Background Sounds ) And play that again, Carlos. ( Background Sounds ) So the individual that was in that truck is obviously deceased, still in the truck as we speak here today. Our fire department folks, Engine 12, a number of others, you'll hear from one of the fire chiefs here in just a moment arrived very quickly along with my officers. And obviously we knew that we had a much larger event than just a vehicle fire. And so there's going to be a drone video that plays to my left again. You'll see as we-- the fire initially they covered it with the tarp to try to get it to go out. Once the fire went out through the suppression efforts of the fire department, you'll see some of the evidence in the back of the vehicle. So those are gasoline canisters, they are camp fuel canisters and large firework mortars. ( Background Sounds ) But I also would like you to pay attention to on that video as you see that it looks like the exterior of that truck is completely intact as it sits there. The fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred inside of the valet because it had most of the blast go up through the truck and out. In fact, if you look on that video, you'll see that the front glass doors at the Trump Hotel were not even broken by that blast which they were parked directly in front of, you can see that in the video there. ( Background Sounds ) But I'm very well aware that there's a name already been reported out in to the media. I am not going to confirm any names to you as I sit here today because I cannot do that with 100% certainty of who the individual is. What I can tell you is we do know the truck was rented in Colorado. We were able to trace that truck through the Tesla charging stations and it arrived here in Las Vegas this morning at about 7:30 and went up and down Las Vegas Boulevard before immediately pulling into the Trump Towers. Unfortunately, there were seven people that reported injuries during this incident. All of them still remain as minor injuries and were treated at UMC. I would like to thank the Resorts World because as you know, we had to close down the Trump and evacuate it as well as the Fashion Show Mall and the Resorts World was very gracious in taking those hundreds of individuals in over there, housing them and feeding them prior to us being able to completely clear the hotel. The hotel and Fashion Show are back open for business. The truck will remain closed as we continue this lengthy investigation as we move forward. I'm going to yield now to Chief Billy Samuels but I'd like you to also recognize all of our exceptional elected officials that have come to support the police and the fire department and this community in remaining safe. There is no further threat to the community as I sit here today and I just want to make sure that our community understands we believe this to be an isolated incident and it is now over as far as the danger. So Billy. ( Pause ) Thank you Sheriff. I'm going to reiterate some of the stuff that the Sheriff has spoken upon. Engine 12 did arrive within four minutes of dispatch. It did extinguish the fire with assistance from the sprinkler systems and along with that electric vehicle blanket that we use on those operations. We didn't encounter seven victims, all stable, two of them were transported to UMC who have since been released. They were transported by community ambulance. A total of 13 units from Clark County Fire with 26 personnel and then four units from and 17 personnel from Las Vegas Fire and Rescue assisted with this operation. We always do appreciate the support that we get from our hotel partners as the Sheriff was mentioning with Resorts World. RTC did lend us 10 buses so we can refuge the people that were evacuated from the Trump Tower community ambulance for their transportation for us, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue and Nevada Division of Emergency Management. And we do appreciate their support so we can do that without them. And like the Sheriff said, last night was a huge success but we are prepared for whatever comes our way so thank you for that. And I will turn this over to Special Agent in Charge, Jerry Schwartz. ( Pause ) Good afternoon. My name is Jeremy Schwartz. I'm currently the acting Special Agent in Charge for the FBI here in Las Vegas. The FBI is currently conducting an investigation on a vehicle explosion as the Sheriff had just shown you a little bit ago. That's being conducted through our JTTF which is a Joint Terrorism Task Force. I want to make sure everybody understands that the task force is comprised of law enforcement officials from the entire valley here. We're not doing anything alone and we wouldn't do anything alone without our partners making sure that we're all in lockstep. We've learned from mistakes in the past and we're not going to do that again. We have a great relationship with our law enforcement partners and we're going to continue to do so. As of right now, our number one goal is to ensure that we have the proper identification of the subject involved in this incident. Following that, our second objective is to determine whether this was an act of terrorism or not. I know everybody is interested in that word and trying to see if we can say, "Hey, this is a terrorist attack." That is our goal and that's what we're trying to do. We have a ton of resources dedicated to this right now and again, we're doing it with our partners. We're doing it together jointly and we'll continue to do so until we figure out exactly what's going on. I think most importantly as the Sheriff already mentioned, we believe this is an isolated incident. We do not believe that there's a bunch of folks out there supporting this or helping this and we don't believe that there's any other danger to the community right now. But again, over the next few hours and days, we will continue to do our best to research as much as we can and get to the bottom of this so we won't stop until we're 100% certain as to what happened and why. Thank you. ( Pause ) So I just want to clarify again so that I don't get these questions. We do know who rented the truck. We are looking at that individual but I am not prepared to release the name of any of the individuals that we are looking at, at least until next weekend is notified and we have a 100% identification. So with that, I'll take any questions you might have. ( Inaudible Remark ) I can't see. ( Inaudible Remark ) Hi Dana. ( Inaudible Remark ) Do I think it's a coincidence? I don't know but what I can tell you is we're absolutely investigating any connectivity to what happened in New Orleans as well as other attacks that have been occurring around the world. We're not ruling anything out yet Dana. ( Inaudible Remark ) Yeah so the question is, is there any links to ISIS? And I will tell you that we don't have any indication of that here in Las Vegas. No overt ISIS flag as was seen in New Orleans. But again, we are investigating every aspect of this and if that comes to light, we'll certainly update you. I'm sorry sir. ( Inaudible Remark ) About at one hour was the amount of time between the arrival of the truck here in Las Vegas, at least our first notification of the arrival and the explosion that occurred at the tower. ( Inaudible Remark ) It was only there for about, it was sitting in the port of Kishare for about 15 seconds before it exploded. ( Inaudible Remark ) Was that 15? Where'd Dory go? ( Inaudible Remark ) 15 to 20 seconds. I just want to make sure I gave you the right info. ( Inaudible Remark ) Well I mean it's a Tesla truck and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump and it's the Trump Tower so there's obviously things to be concerned about there and that's something we continue to look at. ( Inaudible Remark ) Yeah so I'm glad you asked that question. Do we need to reexamine security procedures? You know we were very successful the night before. I'm surprised this happened to be quite frank with you and that's certainly something we're going to have to look at and target hardening what that looks like. But to your question Dana, I did forget to mention that I have authorized what we call an ABX roster to continue for the next two days, which is my New Year's Eve staffing plan of over a thousand officers both in our community neighborhoods as well as on the strip and downtown in partnership with all of the other law enforcement agencies, City of Las Vegas Marshalls, North Las Vegas Henderson just to ensure that even if we had a copycat or somebody else wanted to go up and conduct an attack that we have the appropriate and available resources to handle it. ( Inaudible Remark ) No, the question is did we find any devices that would be used to set off the explosives and the answer is no, I don't know how they were ignited. Clearly with what you see in there something set them off but I don't know what it was yet. We haven't been able to process the vehicle yet. ( Inaudible Remark ) Yes actually I have to thank Elon Musk specifically. He gave us quite a bit of additional information in regards to how the vehicle was locked after it exploded due to the force of the nature or the nature of the force from the explosion as well as being able to capture all of the video from the Tesla charging stations across the country and he sent that directly to us so I appreciate his help on that. I'll take one more question. ( Inaudible Remark ) I'm sorry you guys speak up for me. ( Inaudible Remark ) ( Inaudible Remark ) It's another, the question is is both vehicles, I'm being told New Orleans was rented from Toro and so was ours, that's another coincidence that absolutely is continuing to bear from our investigation that we have to continue to look into. So thank you very much and as we get additional information for all of you, I'm sorry I'll give you a shot. ( Inaudible Remark ) That's the question is are we using the license plate readers and the technology? Well one you see the drone flight through the vehicle because it was unsafe to get there so that we're using that technology, thankful to have it as well as the first indication of that vehicle arriving here in Las Vegas came from a license plate reader so technology has been very useful to us in resolving this and again I'll commit to come back to you all when we have confirmation of the suspect's name, who they are, what their background is, we will get that information back out to you, we'll call another press conference and provide it. I'd just like to again thank the mayor, the commissioners, the other law enforcement leaders and of course our attorney general for showing up and supporting us in this event. It's been a statewide effort and I appreciate it, thank you.