Warning: This article contains graphic imagery and language.
As details steadily come in about the Las Vegas shooting that has left 59 dead and 527 injured, so have videos and images showing the terror concertgoers faced as alleged shooter Stephen Paddock began spraying bullets at the crowd from a Mandalay Bay hotel room.
This YouTube video below, in particular, is jarring. Around the 1:10 mark, amid a screaming crowd—some running for their lives, others lying on the ground in fear—a man remains standing, his arms wide open, yelling, “Come on, pussy” at the shooter.
While many are pointing out the absurdity of the man’s hyper-macho response—an extreme version of “come at me, bro” as bullets are heard flying—most of us have never been victim to a mass shooting, so who are we to know what our instincts give way to when we are suddenly confronted with the 273rd mass shooting this year, a number that’s absurd in itself.
Instead, I would argue it’s the juxtaposition of the crowd’s reactions—from fear to flight to panic to disillusion—that makes this video so harrowing, so painfully human, and so hard to watch.
Editor’s note: This post has been updated to reflect the latest death toll in the Las Vegas shooting.
