One of the world’s leading experts in crisis management and threat assessment told the casino industry this week to be prepared, because last fall’s mass shooting in Las Vegas wasn’t an anomaly.
“These are not going to go away,” said Larry Barton, an instructor at the FBI Academy and for the U.S. Marshal’s Service and a professor of crisis management and public safety at the University of Central Florida. “I would love to say that they are, but that’s not going to happen. This is our new normal.”
Terrorists have, for years, targeted hotels and entertainment and sporting venues overseas, and shooters and domestic terrorists are beginning to do the same in this country, as evidenced by Stephen Paddock opening fire on an outdoor concert from his room at Mandalay Bay on October 1. It was the deadliest shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history.
Barton was one of the featured speakers this week at Bally’s Las Vegas for the World Game Protection Conference, which focused this year on violent incidents and threats. He’s the author of four best-selling books on crisis response; his latest is Crisis Leadership Now.
In his remarks, Barton criticized law enforcement’s response and coordination during and directly after the shooting, MGM Resorts International for being vague about what happened at their property, and response and security practices at the concert that Paddock attacked.
He explained that threats aren’t always about killing or physical threats, but incidents that can embarrass a company and have the potential to cost resorts business if they don’t handle them properly. He cited as an example the recent case of Steve Wynn, who has recently been accused of multiple incidents of sexual misconduct over a period of years. Because it wasn’t addressed at the time, Barton said, Wynn Resorts now faces a loss of business and intense scrutiny by state gaming control boards. Wynn resigned in February and may sell his 12 percent stake in Wynn Resorts.
The company currently has a new, multibillion-dollar property, Wynn Boston Harbor, under construction in Massachusetts.
“What’s the Massachusetts Gaming Control Board going to do (now),” Barton asked. “Are they going to mandate the Wynn name come off that building? They may. It’s going to be fascinating to see how that rolls out. What is the (Wynn board of directors) going to do with the name of his property down the street (on the Las Vegas Strip)?”
Action may be needed, Barton said, because women working at major companies could start refusing to stay at the property.
“What does that do to your convention business, when women with companies who (use) your properties for meetings say I’m not going there? The stigma exists… the discussion is there. Conventions and groups are dealing with these issues right now.”
Barton called Las Vegas Metro Police an “amazing” and “phenomenal” department but said there are a lot of questions about whether anyone in the city anticipated such an attack, given the number of high-rise hotels in the city. Paddock fired down at the concert from the 32nd floor at the Mandalay Bay.
Barton called himself “a friend of law enforcement” who has trained thousands in the profession from all over the world. In the case of the Paddock shooting, however, the incident command system failed during the tragedy, he said.
“The response is not what we should have expected of a great city,” Barton said. “… There are a lot of questions that will come into play, but I will tell you that law enforcement all over the world is baffled by this. If any city in the world other than New York and LA should have been prepared, it’s this one, because of the past tragedies, like the MGM Grand fire in 1980 that killed 85 people, and the likelihood (of) this in a world of terrorism… Law enforcement is beating itself up, as it should, because mistakes were made,” with officers responding to an incident for which they weren’t prepared.
“This guy is shooting actively for about 20 minutes,” Barton said. “Why didn’t somebody put a drone (up)? You might not be able to shoot up, given the height of the building, but how many drones are in this city? With a camera on a drone, we could have had a good idea. It’s very hard to shoot at a moving drone while you’re shooting people down below.”
It will be another six to eight months before the FBI completes a definitive report on what happened October 1st, Barton said. Metro Police did a good job with its report, released in January, he said, but the best report will come from the FBI.
“It’s not because they’re trying to embarrass anyone… they’re trying to help the public understand,” Barton said. “It’s about making sure we do everything possible, so it doesn’t happen again.”
Barton said he’s also participated in discussions in Las Vegas about the release of chemicals such as sarin gas in an attack, which he sees as a future possibility somewhere in America.
“We have seen it in Moscow, and it will happen sometime here,” Barton said. (It should be noted that the Moscow attack gas was released by the Russian government: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2979-mystery-of-russian-gas-deepens/). “We have to be ready.”
Barton said casinos should work to bring in law enforcement from local, state and federal agencies to discuss scenarios and preparation.
“These shooters (like Paddock) think, plan and organize,” Barton said. “If they’re doing it, why aren’t we?”
That means instructing employees that their response in facing a gunman should be to either run, hide or fight. He said one human resource director didn’t like the use of the word fight and wanted to use oppose instead.
“This guy has a Glock in my face, so I should oppose what he’s doing,” Barton said. “Think about that. How ludicrous is this.”
If the employee doesn’t have a pipe or other weapon, the solution is to “kick the threat in the groin,” Barton said.
“We have to tell employees to be prepared without making them paranoid.”
Barton’s biggest concerns, meanwhile, are for some of the smaller properties in the gaming industry because they don’t have the same level of resources needed to train employees to deal with tragedies and ordeals. Casinos would help themselves, he said, if they had an evacuation message prepared rather than waiting to do it when something happens.
There were plenty of problems all the way around in dealing with the Paddock shooting, Barton said. He cited concert security still being hired for $10 an hour in the newspaper the day leading up to it, saying that such hiring practices don’t allow ample time for training to deal with any emergencies that might arise.
“I don’t know if training (was done), because no one is talking,” Barton said. “There is a cone of silence that has overcome this entire case… It will be broken.”
Barton praised Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos for confronting Paddock, even as he was shot in the process. But, given that Campos was wounded roughly six minutes before Paddock began firing on the crowd, questions necessarily have arisen about when and how Mandalay Bay notified the police. There were two military veterans staying on the floor who called the operator and told them of automatic fire, he said.
There are also questions about the casino’s evaluation of Paddock as a potential threat. Paddock was a gambling addict, known to regularly bet hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on video poker. In the days before October 1st, he brought luggage to his suite at Mandalay on six separate occasions without arousing suspicion, and there are further questions about his being permitted to use the service elevator to do so.
“Ammo is heavy,” Barton said. “How did it get in? That will be known… If you lost somebody in that tragedy, or you or someone you care about was wounded, you’d have a question about that service elevator and (whether) a guest should be able to use it. These will be the questions that come out during litigation.” He went on to say that MGM will likely argue that they can’t be held responsible for what a guest does while on premises and will portray the casino as merely a host.
“It’s going to be ugly,” Barton said.
Mandalay Bay itself is not to blame, he went on to say, citing the secrecy that has surrounded this case, particularly the edict that no one should talk about this case or release any footage from inside the casino of that night. He said there are questions about the handling of other security incidents at the concert, and that there should have been an announcement from the stage. He questioned why there were no scenarios developed and trained for beforehand.
“This isn’t the first time somebody has had to grab a microphone on stage,” Barton said. “At the Siegfried and Roy (show in which a Tiger attacked Roy on stage in 2003 at the Mirage), somebody grabbed a microphone on stage and said there was a tiger out of control, and that message went out to the audience. Things happen on stage.”
Barton said he recently went to a Broadway show and saw on the back of his ticket instructions about what to do in case of an emergency: if there is an attacker, first call police if possible, and then run, hide or fight.
“We’re already seeing it trickle down,” Barton said.
