Las Vegas hotels are rethinking security protocols after a guest brought dozens of guns into his room at Mandalay Bay and opened fire on a nearby music festival Sunday evening, killing at least 59 people and injuring hundreds more.
At least two hotels, Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, began using handheld metal detectors to screen guests’ luggage following this weekend’s massacre, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Tuesday.
The heightened security measure caused 10-minute delays for guests attempting to enter Wynn, a luxury hotel, Bloomberg first reported, before the practice was scaled back Tuesday afternoon, according to the Review-Journal.
“We initiated metal scanning at our entrances early Monday morning when it was uncertain if there were multiple shooters,” a Wynn spokesperson told the newspaper. “Now that it is confirmed there was one shooter, we will return to scanning guests when we believe the need to arises. We are continuing our other enhanced security procedures and entrances and throughout the resort.”
Both properties that used metal detectors to screen guests’ luggage this week are owned by casino magnate Steve Wynn and located on the Las Vegas Strip roughly 3 miles north of Mandalay Bay and the site of this weekend’s massacre.
Authorities said Stephen Paddock, 64, used modified, high-powered rifles to open fire from his room on the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay as concertgoers attended a country music festival across the street.
Authorities ultimately breached Paddock’s hotel room and found his lifeless body alongside an arsenal of more than 40 firearms, law enforcement said afterwards.
“I think that he would have eluded attention anywhere,” Steven Adelman, vice president of the Event Safety Alliance, told CBS News. “There is no hotel in the U.S. that has that kind of X-rays or metal detectors at every entrance and every elevator because this is literally unprecedented.”
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.