Officers responded to the Las Vegas Strip hotel after initial reports of a possible shooting there, but police said there was no evidence that a shooting occurred.
Updated March 15, 2025 – 9:49 pm
Panic-stricken guests at Circus Circus on Saturday spoke of moments of terror as Las Vegas police responded to reports of a possible shooting that were ultimately determined to have been unfounded.
Without knowing it was a false alarm, however, guests ran out of the Strip hotel in fear of their lives.
“People started crying. People started yelling and a lot of people started running,” said Shahiera Langendam, a guest at Circus Circus. “This was actually the most scariest thing I have ever experienced.”
The Metropolitan Police Department said in a press release issued just after 6:30 p.m. Saturday that there were “no victims or evidence of a shooting.”
In a second press release issued just after 9:15 p.m., police said the reports of the shooting were unfounded.
“Detectives learned that a fight broke out inside of the venue causing numerous individuals to run out of the property,” police said in the second press release. “This caused panic amongst the crowd and several other fights broke out outside of the property.”
Without identifying Circus Circus by name, Metro said officers responded just before 5:40 p.m. to a hotel in the 2800 block of Las Vegas Boulevard South and that the “location has been evacuated out of an abundance of caution.”
Multiple Metro police vehicles could be seen outside Circus Circus Saturday evening. Along with Langendam, some outside the hotel described the scene.
Langendam was inside a store inside the property when she heard people telling others to hide.
“A woman told me she heard gunshots,” Langendam said. “We heard a lot of stories about people possibly stabbing or shooting. That’s what I heard.”
Andrew Cannezzaro, of West Palm Beach, Florida, said he and his girlfriend were staying at Circus Circus.
After visiting another resort corridor hotel Saturday afternoon, they returned to the hotel at around 6:30 p.m. to see what they described as a “wall” of police officers outside the hotel.
“Our Uber driver said that there was something going on (at Circus Circus), so he went in the back way,” Cannezzaro said. “There was no way to get into Circus Circus at that point, so we had him drop us at the curb. We tried to go in and walked into a wall of cops. We could tell we weren’t going to get in. People were saying there was a shooter.”
Just before 8 p.m., Cannezzaro said, they were allowed back to their room. Other guests were also seen going back inside, though people who couldn’t provide proof of being a guest at the hotel were turned away.
Contact Bryan Horwath at [email protected] or 702-383-0399. Follow @BryanHorwath on X.
Contact Arlette Yousif at [email protected]. Follow @arletteyousif on Instagram.
Posted on: Crime, Local, Shootings, The Strip
Tagged: mc-crime
