LAS VEGAS (CelebrityAccess) The Nevada Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Metropolitan Police Department must begin releasing body camera footage and 911 call audio of the Route 91 Harvest country music festival shooting massacre.
The ruling was requested by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which was contested by the Metro because it would allegedly cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take much longer to produce the footage and audio, according to the newspaper.
“The speed with which the Supreme Court made this decision reflects the complete absence of merit in the Metropolitan Police Department’s arguments,” Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said.
The request has been wending through the court system since March, when district Judge Richard Scotti gave Metro six month to fulfill the order on a “rolling basis.” Metro appealed the decision, first to District Court then to Nevada Supreme Court, causing District Judge Stefany Miley to accuse the department of intentionally stalling the release of the material.
The incident occurred Oct. 1 when a man had an arsenal of weapons that he used from the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay to fire upon the crowd at the festival below, killing 58 people and injuring 851 during a set by Jason Aldean. It is the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and the worst-ever committed by a single person.
Not only has the Metro police been reticent with requests for more information on the shooting, little is still known as to the motivation of the shooter, or how he moved his weapons without notice, or much about his background. The timeline provided by police has shifted several times.
“It is my personal hope that every other Southern Nevada government entity that is flagrantly violating the Nevada Public Records Act will see this decision — and so many others that have preceded it — and finally understand the futility of their embrace of secrecy,” Cook said.
