Sasha Larkin
In looking at 2022, what we see is overwhelmingly the violence has become grievance based. As we look into the why into that, what is the cause? How do we really get in front of a grievance-based shooting? The answer is complicated.
Robert Riggs
Sasha Larkin, the Deputy Chief of the Homeland Security Division at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, describes a new threat–grievance based shootings.
She says it was easier to deal with the Osama bin Laden’s of the terrorist world because it was easier to identify them and their motivations.
But a new threat of growing grievance-based shootings is taking the stage.
Hello, I’m investigative reporter Robert Riggs here with a look inside the crime scene tape at America’s playground—Las Vegas.
Sasha Larkin is a 22-year veteran of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
She came up through the ranks reaching Deputy Chief.
From her post overseeing the Homeland Security Division, Larkin has a unique perspective on crime trends.
In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the new phenomenon of grievance shootings, her approach to stopping murders that arise out of domestic violence, her path to leadership as a role model to women, and the deadly Route 91 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip that occurred on October 1st of 2017.
You may recall that a 64-year-old lone, heavily armed rifleman perched in a 32nd-floor suite of the Mandalay Bay Hotel opened fire on a crowd at the Harvest Music Festival below.
He killed 60 people. Wounded 411. Caused chaos that led to the injury of 456 people.
It was the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in U.S. history.
And remains a mystery.
Here’s my interview with Deputy Chief Sasha Larkin.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
In looking at 2022, what we see is overwhelmingly the violence has become grievance-based. As we look into the why, into that, what is the cause? How do we really get in front of a grievance-based shooting? The answer is is complicated.
Robert Riggs
Sasha Larkin, the deputy chief of the Homeland Security Division at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, describes a new threat: grievance-based shootings. She says it was easier to deal with the Osama bin Ladens of the terrorist world because it was easier to identify them and their motivations, but a new threat of growing grievance-based shootings is taking the stage. Hello, I'm investigative reporter Robert Riggs, here with a look inside the crime scene tape at America's Playground, Las Vegas. Sasha Larkin is a 22-year veteran of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. She came up through the ranks reaching deputy chief. From her post overseeing the Homeland Security Division, Larkin has a unique perspective on crime trends. In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the new phenomena of grievance shootings, her approach to stopping murders that arise out of domestic violence, her path to leadership as a role model for women, and the deadly Route 91 mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip that occurred on october 1 of 2017, you may recall that a 64-year-old lone, heavily armed rifleman perched in a 32nd-floor suite of the Mandalay Bay Hotel opened fire on a crowd at the Harvest Music Festival below. He killed 60 people, wounded 411, caused chaos that led to the injury of 456 people. It was the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in U.S. history, and remains a mystery. Here's my interview with Deputy Chief Sasha Larkin. Chief Larkin, we've done some reports here on the True Crime Reporter podcast about mass killings, active shooters, and I was talking earlier with you about grievance killings, and I thought that was very interesting. You put it in the context of the Tulsa case a few weeks ago, where a patient was angry about the pain he was still suffering. Tell our listeners what what are you seeing there?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
So listen, Las Vegas is a unique city. We have a melting pot of cultures and people and tourism and residents and businesses. I mean, Zappos actually made their home here in Las Vegas. We're not just the world's 25 out of the 35 largest hotels anymore. We really have become a community within that. We have to pay close attention to violence, violent crime, the prevention of terrorism. So we've really taken the opportunity to dissect a lot of those things. After you suffer a mass casualty incident, as we did on one October of 2017, what's often referred to as the Route 91 or Mandalay Bay shooting, we've really tried to look at how do we get in front of, how do we prevent, what is it? Is it a mass shooting that's the biggest threat? Is it crime because of robbery or handguns, or are these new grievance-based shootings really what's taking the stage? And as I started to spend some time with my team looking into that, it became apparent that anything from a love triangle to somebody fired from a job can really create a grievance in somebody's life. You know, years ago, when we were dealing with the Osama bin Ladens of the world, in one way it was easier. In one way, we had a blueprint, we had a box, right, a label that we could fit these shooters into. We could say, "Oh, he's an Islamic terrorist. He was radicalized, and it felt sexy. It was international. It seemed far away from us, right? It didn't seem like it was ever going to land on our front door, until it does. And in looking at 2022, what we see is overwhelmingly the violence has become grievance based. As we look into the why, into that, what is the cause? How do we really get in front of a grievance-based shooting? The answer is is complicated. The answer is there's programs, there's there's outreach, there's conversations, all of these things that lead. To get in front of the why, I mean, it's it's really something you and I could sit here and talk about for an hour.
Robert Riggs
And is this something that your officers experience after the fact, or do they walk into the middle of any of these grievance based shootings?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Well, we would like to get in front of them. We would like to get there before it goes boom or bang, right? Look, sometimes we go on a domestic violence call, and we think it's very benign. We think husband and wife they get into an argument because somebody had an affair or because the child did something wrong. But if we don't close the loop on that call, if we don't figure out is there potential for future violence? Is there something more here than just an argument over somebody didn't put the dishes away? Because what happens is during the Osama bin Laden years, the time to violence was much longer. We would say 24 months to really radicalize somebody to change their belief patterns. We had time. We had time to what we call perform intervention metrics. We could see where the chat groups somebody was on. We could figure out if they change their appearance. They all of a sudden their friends would call and say, "Oh, my friend Bob is all of a sudden growing his hair long and listening to different music. We had a chance to intervene. The trigger to violence was much longer. They would acquire supplies. They would join groups. Right, all of these things that allowed police opportunity to get in front of it. But now with these grievance-based shootings, they can quietly be online. They can join a group. And let's let's talk about the group that you and I talked about the other day, what we see a lot of times are groups that form online in a dark web or a deep web connection, maybe four chan or eight chan groups, where they can find like-minded people. So in cells, right, involuntary sellers, right. We hear about them on the news, but I don't know that people really understand how deep that is! You have a young man who has gone through maybe middle school, high school, maybe college, and felt disregarded, ignored, invisible by the opposite sex, and they feel like they're a beta male, and that these women, these girls, who they're trying so desperately to grab their attention. Want nothing to do with them. These girls are going after what they view to be an alpha male, right? And in this world, they look at the women and they call them Stacy's. They say, "Oh, the Staceys don't want the you know they they don't want them. And they call the alpha alpha males the Chads, and they have this whole inner dialog, and they they they encourage each other. They they build each other up until that trigger to violence happens. And by trigger to violence, I mean these incels. They they they come together on their websites or on their chat groups. They're having these conversations. They're validating one another's feelings of being ignored and that the women are the enemy, right? And then maybe they go to school or they go to work, and a girl makes a snide comment, or what we've seen is a girl doesn't like them, and maybe they like somebody else instead. So that's the trigger to violence. And they come back with an automatic weapon or a firearm, and they kill the girl, the guy, and 10 other people. Right? That's not because they were radicalized, that's not because they believed in one god or another. That's because they had a grievance with a woman, a grievance with this whole sex. They felt like they were ignored unjustly, and so these grievance-based shootings can be on anything. It could be based on what we saw in Buffalo, New York, right? It could be a racial grievance. It could be any of these things, really.
Robert Riggs
My daughter works in counterintelligence for an agency. I'm not going to talk about here, but one of her colleagues did his master's thesis on 4chan and 8chan, and she showed me some of the stuff that was going on there, and what was being talked about women and creating smear campaigns against them online that they were prostitutes and other things. It it was shocking, but do you have a sense where is this anger and hate boiling up from?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
So I think that it comes from the lack of validation, right? And you can trace it back. There's a lot of sociologists, psychologists that believe maybe there was early mommy issues, maybe they come from a broken family, any any of these things, right? They haven't really pinned it down to say every one of them has one or the other, but it is that need, that desire. We call it a lot of times in in the counterterrorism world. We talk about social identity theory, the desire to belong to something bigger than yourself, right? And we
Robert Riggs
all we all want that,
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
of course. Yeah. And and my friend Christian Piccolini, he he wrote a couple different books, but. To me, boils it down of the best I've ever heard it. He says, if you look at the social identity theory, people long for three things: community, identity, and purpose. I mean, really think about that. No matter what age you are, what race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, it doesn't matter. Community. We all want to belong to a community. Maybe that's religious community. Maybe that's our school community. We want to have identity, right? The I am factor. I am a police chief. I am a woman. I am a mother. Whatever my I am is, I have to have that I am and a purpose. My purpose is to make the world a better place. My purpose is to share my vision, whatever that purpose is, but absent one of those things, we will find it, and sometimes we find it subconsciously or unconsciously, and and let me give you an example. Let's say you have a young adolescent who has maybe let's come from a single parent home, and I relate to this. I grew up in a single parent home, right? My mother raised me, and I give her all the credit in the world for doing it because she she worked sometimes two jobs. She's a nurse, an RN, put herself through school when I was young, and I remember watching that and thinking, okay, I understand work ethic, hard work. But because of that, I was raised for a while by my grandparents, and then as I got older, it was the I grew up in the what we call the lock key lock key generation, where I would be daycare or after school services, and alone. I was a single child, no brothers and sisters, so that community identity and purpose was really strong as a young child, wanting to find those things. So my mother, to her credit, put me in dance class. So now I have community, the other dancers. My purpose to wear a tutu and be in the Nutcracker, right? You know, you're eight, nine years old. Your purpose is much simpler than it is at 40, and community identity and purpose. So that's what it was. And as I got older, it became martial arts. My community was the other martial artist? My purpose was to win all my tournaments, and my identity was I am a black belt. So it's very simple. So as long as we have that, and we give our children that, they will have that sense of belonging, and the social identity theory will keep them in what they believe to be their in group. But the second that's removed, or parents get divorced, or change a living situation, or maybe lose a job. Right, this was true during COVID. Lots of people were out of work. Lots of people lost their homes. Right, it was very disruptive. And I'm sure your daughter has seen this in her work. These kids, now that they have access to the internet, they can find community to associate with, and sometimes it's a gang. Sometimes a young girl will have a pimp that recruits her to get into the sex trafficking trade. Sometimes what we call what your daughter probably sees the radicalization online. And at the end of the day, it's a race, right? Who gets to people first? Who connects to them first to give them community identity and purpose? Is it a gang or is it the police department offering some great program to give them connectivity? Right, that's the race early on, but if that doesn't get won by the right people, that's where we see these grievance-based shootings start to erupt because absent people having that connectivity, the trigger to violence becomes much quicker, and and sometimes it's not that simple. But in a generalistic form, and when we're talking about prevention, because your original question was, you know, how do we? What do the police see? Do we encounter it before or after? Yes. Well, we're trying to get in front of it by giving them connectivity, but if we don't, what we find is we're having to clean it up on the back end,
Robert Riggs
right?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
You know,
Robert Riggs
and my daughter specializes in something called OSINT, open source intelligence.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
I know it well,
Robert Riggs
and she will tell you it's all out there. Yeah, it's all out there.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
It
Robert Riggs
is, and so she has specialized in groups that are been in the news with the January six hearings, and but it's just percolating online, and and so people do find that an identity among each other, and it becomes an echo chamber.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Yes, is
Robert Riggs
there? Are you just? Are you too late to the game? Is it is it too much to ask of a police department to try to do something to contribute solving the problem? Is it go deeper? It's it's certainly complex.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
We are absolutely not too late. No, I will never accept that answer. I truly believe we have a golden opportunity right now, for a couple of reasons. One, people are waking up from COVID. Right? We want to get back into life. I think generally around the world, we want to live again. We want to travel again. We want to work, you know, do all of these things. Now, what complicates that is everything from politics to the economy to jobs, right? So there's all of these complicating factors. But let's put those to the side. What opportunity does the police? Department have, well, I think the world is our oyster. The only thing that is going to limit a police department is their lack of creativity or courage. You know, I'm blessed. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, led by Sheriff Joe Lombardo, has been monumental in leading the way in crime and terrorism prevention. We've done it through the use of technology. We've done it through the use of community-based programs, and honestly, we've done it through really making sure that we use statistics and crime-based information and intelligence to put us in front of the crime. And and coming back to that grievance shooting, people told me in 2016, you can't prevent domestic violence-related homicides. You can't do it. You can't prevent what happens in somebody's home, and there's nothing I love more than being told I can't. So we started to look at that, and we thought, what are the what are the similarities? We had we just for reference in Las Vegas we have 10 area commands, or what they call in some cities precincts or police stations, 10 of them,
Robert Riggs
and you cover the entire county. You're not just a metropolitan area. It's what? How many 1000 square miles are you responsible for?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Thank you for that question. It actually gives me the opportunity to give the perspective. You're right. So in 1973, Las Vegas City and Clark County merged to become one. That's what makes us a metropolitan. And I actually think we're the only police department in the country that works like this. We have an elected sheriff with a four-year term, and he answers to nobody except for the people. He's the highest-ranking official. So yes, we do have a governor, but the governor does not give direction to the police department, and so we cover over 6000 square miles, and we go all the way down to state line of California, and all the way up towards the mountains. We have three different resident sections, and we have over 5000 employees. And last, I looked at the statistics. We're the sixth, give or take, largest police department in the country, and it is a substantial undertaking with 40 to 42 million visitors a year. Our population fluctuates about 2 million.
Robert Riggs
And give our listeners a sense of your personal responsibilities, deputy as deputy chief in Homeland Security.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Yes, I'm the deputy chief currently of Homeland Security Division, which means I have the Fusion Center. I have counterterrorism detectives that are within our organization. We also have folks on the JTTF Task Force. I have the Real Time Crime Center, which is a lot of what we're talking about that houses the technology that we're using to stay in front of crimes. I have the technical analytical section, which does everything from drones to crime cameras. I have armor, which is they handle everything except for nuclear when it comes to you know a suspicious device, suspected explosives, Molotov cocktails, anything of that sort. I have SWAT, I have canine, air support, and a homeland saturation team that is a overt, uniformed presence out on Las Vegas Boulevard and within our downtown corridor. So it's really a. I think I have the best job on the organization, but of course I'm a little biased.
Robert Riggs
And the city and the strip is an iconic symbol around the world.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Yes,
Robert Riggs
and I presume that adds to the risk of it being a target.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
I think that every day, yes. I mean, how could it not be? I mean, look back in 911, the 911 hijackers led by Mohamed Atta came through Las Vegas on their way to carry out their attacks. So if that doesn't prove to you that we are on their radar, nothing ever will, right? That was a big wake up call for us.
Robert Riggs
And did we figure out why they were there? I always wondered if they were kind of laundering money with chips or something.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Possibly, I think. Listen, I think that there's probably a plethora of reasons they came through here. One last hoorah! Come to Vegas, you know. There's there's probably a few different reasons, but I don't know that we ever said there was a specific one, money base or anything else.
Robert Riggs
Before we came on today, I was talking to a criminal defense attorney, very well known here in Dallas, who used to be a prosecutor. He was the death penalty prosecutor in Dallas County, and I asked him about. grievance killing off of him, and he was like, "Yeah, I'm seeing that in my practice. This crazy stuff clients are have done and are doing. And he and he believes, and I were I talked to other people. It's something up coming out of the pandemic. His theory was that people sat at home alone, and suddenly they didn't like the person they were, and they saw other images. You have any sense of that? That that can be contributing.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Yes, and that's what we were talking about, Robert. Right? Social isolation leads to the ability to connect or radicalize, and and please understand, I use the. Word radicalization in a non-Islamic fact. I use it. I use it to go from one benign way of thinking to an extreme way of thinking. Right to me, that's radicalization. I think that people were at home. I think that they were disconnected from community, the greater whole, all the things we talked about, and I think that that longing to connect becomes so overwhelming that at some point, once we were released right out of our quarantines, they had changed. And I think we saw that. I'll give you a good example: the New York subway attack that happened a couple months ago.
Robert Riggs
Yes,
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
he was. He is a fascinating look at social isolation and what it can do to somebody. They had posted. He had posted videos on YouTube, and he in the beginning he really talked about you know they were they were upset. He was he was upset with the system. He was upset with people, but he wasn't going to commit any violence. He was very clear about that. No, I don't want to be violent. You know, I just don't think that A, B, and C are correct. And as you see time progressing and COVID has gone on longer, you see the change very clearly in his verbiage, his tone, his use of violence or anger. And by the end, right before he commits the attack, he is crystal clear that violence is the only answer. He is crystal clear that this attack has to be done in order to have the effect that he needs to create change. And it is exactly what your friend probably talked about-that that social isolation led him through the period of not wanting to use violence to violence being the only answer. It's really interesting,
Robert Riggs
Machifa. I'm going to pause for a moment for a message from our sponsor, and we'll be right back.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Absolutely.
Robert Riggs
We're back with Deputy Chief Sasha Larkin of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. She heads up Homeland Security, and we're talking about grievance killings. And Chief, talk about what you know what goes on inside a home, a domestic dispute, and what you've learned there.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
So, as we talked about earlier, there are a lot of situations, and and you actually mentioned it-the shooting at the hospital that we had a couple of weeks ago, where the man went in and shot his ex-wife and the doctor that she was currently dating and other people. And I know that a lot of people watching the news or reading those stories think, "Wow, that's so extreme. You know, why not just it's your ex-wife? Why are you going to kill her and take out a bunch of people with them? Well, all of the things that we've laid the foundation for so far really come back to illustrate a point of triggers of violence being much quicker, social isolation. You know, it can be argued the accessibility to firearms. All of these things play into play into it. But let's rewind the tape. If if that happened in my city, the question that I would be asking is, have we ever been to their home before on a domestic violence call? Was there any red flags ahead of time? Could we, the police, have intervened? Could we have? Could the red flag red flag law could have prevented him from acquiring illegal firearm? Right. I understand that they can get them illegally. Is there anything that we could have done right. Could we have put the hospital on notice that there was issues in their marriage or divorce? So, in let me let me give you a good a good illustration of this. When I got promoted to captain in 2016, I got sent to an area command. I think I was telling you we have 10 area commands here, and I got sent to one called Northwest Area Command, which in all essence is suburbia. It had about 300,000 residents, single-family homes, multifamily dwellings. But for the most part, it was it was just businesses and homes, right? It was removed from Las Vegas Strip. Not a whole lot of tourists, but with that comes a lot of calls for our officers to respond to domestic violence during those years, that area command in 2016 had six domestic violence-related homicides, and the same the following year in 2017. Now that's just one area command out of 10, and if you add those numbers up, it's substantial. And if you look at the national statistics over the last decade, we lead Nevada leads the country either one or two for domestic violence related homicides. Not a title, Robert, that we want to carry. Right? We like having awards, but not that one. So they told me they said, "Oh, don't worry about it. You can't affect what happens behind someone's closed doors. You'll never be able to do it. I was like, yeah, I don't believe that. There's there has to be something more to this story. So my lieutenants, I had four of them at the time, very very smart, motivated folks, and I challenged them. I said, figure out, pull all of these homicides. Let's get the reports and look at them and figure out what is the cause. What are we missing, right? So I have to give them all the credit. They figured it out. In particular, my graveyard lieutenant at the time, his name is Tim Hatchett. He said, "You know, Captain, I think what we're missing is a community-based partner because what we're not doing is recognizing that every one of these domestic violence homicides had a previous call for service where we showed up, which means that somebody, maybe the victim, maybe a neighbor, maybe a child, called 911 when there was a previous fight, previous battery, and what did we do? Did we show up? Did we take a report? Did we take an arrest? We probably did because we're really good at that. But what we didn't do is close the loop, and that is my theory on policing is closing the loop, meaning did we get the victim out of that situation? Did we get them a temporary protective order? Did we get them temporary housing? And the answer most of the time is no, because what police are really good at showing up, recognizing the crime, putting handcuffs on the bad guy, and taking them to jail.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
We got that handled, but where we struggle because we have so many calls for service waiting for us is hand holding the victim, patiently waiting for them to stop having emotional reactions, right? Because they've just been through a traumatic event. So what we figured out was if we partner with an NGO, with a non governmental organization, a some sort of community based group, they could show up and help us. So we have a phenomenal group here called Safe Nest that works in Nevada. They're a domestic violence organization, and we went and we said, "Hey, what do you guys think about partnering with us? Do you want to come on these calls with us, and you do the hand holding, the victim maintenance, and take them all the way from the time of incident all the way through the court processes, so we actually get the aggressors some jail time. Will you do it? And so they said yes. So we created a training program for the and they're volunteers. So those of you listening that run budgets, it doesn't cost you anything. Like that's the selling point. And what happens is our police officers go on these domestic violence calls when they have a victim, they make the arrest and then they call Safe Nest. Safe Nest comes out and does all of the victim work, and they get them out of the situation. Because let's be honest, a lot of times the person we're taking to jail is the breadwinner, pays the bills.
Robert Riggs
Yes,
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
right. And and what are these poor victims supposed to do? They don't want. They can't survive on their own, right? So the good news is, the years that followed, we dropped it from having six and seven a year to zero, right? And we did have one the next year, but there was no previous calls for service at that one, and they had just moved here from another state. So although that is still traumatic and tragic, we had prevented all of them that we could, and that's what I'm talking about. When you ask me about getting in front of a grievance-based shooting, that's how we do it. That's step one, right? If we have the opportunity to recognize there's an issue, we have a responsibility to close the loop every time. And in policing, that's where we fall short sometimes. Sometimes it's a loud music hall. Did you? I always ask my guys. Did you close the loop? Did you fix the problem, or did you just put a band-aid on it? And in order for us to make a dent in grievous-based shootings, we have to close the loop before the incident happens, and we have to have a community that doesn't stand for complacency, lethargy, just blaming it on somebody else, saying somebody else will call that suspicious activity in. The communities have to wake up. We have to get them engaged, and they have to understand that they have a responsibility in violence prevention.
Robert Riggs
Well, you're certainly ahead of the curve from the things I see, and you know, in the wake of the high-profile police shootings, there was a call to put social workers in patrol cars and stuff, which I always thought that's a dangerous proposition. But this sounds like a really smart way to do it-to come in after the fact and give help.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Yeah, it's a partnership. Look, the truth is, Robert, we can't do it alone. We, the police, we, the community, we can't do it alone. We need each other. It has to be a collaborative effort. And look, I'll tell you something. These volunteers are remarkable. Would it be safe to send them there alone? No, absolutely not. We have an officer that's there with them. They're they're never left in an unsafe situation, but but I understand on another level what the community is is crying for when they talk about having social workers come out. And I'll give you a good example. In counterterrorism, we have all sorts of different programs where we deal with these potential grievance-based shooters. We have these threat assessment protocols that we use to figure out how close is someone to the trigger of violence, but now what we've done is we've partnered with clinicians, we've partnered with social workers, psychologists that will come out with us and help us with these assessments and give us real, real scientific and medical-based opinions that make our assessments even that much stronger. They don't go out alone, but we go out together. And really, it does a couple things. One, it shows the community that we're partners. Number two, it gives it gives credence to these assessments that we're doing. And number three, I think it allows us to see things through a lens that we would not otherwise see it through. And it opens our vision to where we become more knowledgeable and able to report and recognize things that just don't feel right.
Robert Riggs
Well, let me turn turn you to some questions about the Route 91 mass killings at the Harvest Music Festival. This is back in october 1, 2017. You know, the 64 year old man really had a sniper's nest up in the Mandalay Bay Hotel, and what do you kill 60, wounded 411, injured 456 people. I have to tell you that every time I've been to Vegas since then, and get in an Uber, there's a conspiracy theory about what happened There is it still a mystery of what his motives were, and can you dispel some of the myths that have come out of this?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to talk about this, because I will tell you there was so many brave men and women out there that night that they deserve the acknowledgement for what they did. Listen, Route 91 is a three-day country music festival, and if anyone thinks that we predicted or thought about a high-rise shooter at the Mandalay Bay, the truth is, and I know you know this from all the years of doing crime-related reporting, sometimes. you hear a crime story and you think, "I've heard it all. Now I've heard it all, right? Every time you hear another story, or
Robert Riggs
yes,
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
right, you think, "Oh, I've heard it all.
Robert Riggs
Right?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
I will tell you what we failed on in preparing for this incident was not thinking maniacally enough. And listen, I had worked in counterterrorism almost a decade before this happened. I'd been a street cop almost my whole career. I understood, you know, I'd read books on crime and motive, and I felt like I really understood it. But the truth is, I didn't have a clue about how people think or prepare like this. And I don't like to give his name too much credence, but just for the record, Stephen Paddock-he wasn't crazy, he wasn't drunk, he wasn't high. As far as we can tell, he was not diagnosed bipolar, schizophrenic, or anything else that would give us that really that sense of yeah, that's why he did it, and that's what when we open talking about Mohamed Atta and the 911 hijackers, we feel a little bit better about that as far as motive because we go, oh yeah, Islamic fundamentalists, right? They they must have been you know they were radicalized or fundamentalists and they they used their belief in in their religion to carry out this horrific attack. We can put that we being counterterrorism homeland security specialist. We can go. Yep, that makes sense. We put it in the box and we stick it on the shelf because we understand it. This one, this one doesn't fit in a box. You have this man who, white man, successful, not dying of cancer, plenty of money in the bank, has a girlfriend, so he's not an incel. We can't put a label on it, and I'll tell you that I think it's probably the most difficult part of this incident is not being able to fully grasp the why. And Sheriff Lombardo said it one time in an interview, and I'll never forget it because it sent chills down my spine. He said he was asked this very question, and he said, "You know, sometimes there's just pure evil in the world, and that was his answer. And I thought, he's so right. Sometimes there is, and we don't like that. I don't like that. But here's what I'll tell you: Stephen Paddock did his research. He looked at open air music festivals all around the country. He looked at them in Chicago, looked at them in California. He looked at the one that we had downtown the weekend before this one, and he knew he knew what he wanted. He knew he wanted dual or multi vantage points, right? The two windows that faced different directions, so he could kill more people. He knew the angle, the height at which he had to be in order to get the best headshots and kills. He knew where he was at the Mandalay Bay. There was also the airport fuel tank, which was great because he took shots at that. He knew that he could create mass pandemonium and mass casualty within a short amount of time, based on the bump stocks he put on his rifles, he had numerous rifles and automatic weapons, and he knew that they would jam, which they did. So he would, instead of clearing the malfunction as we would do tactically in the street, he threw the gun down, grabbed another. He had thought all of this out. He had researched it. He knew what kind of guns we carried. He knew our response times. He knew he knew it all. He did his homework. So what was he? He was prepared. He was well studied. He had enough money to acquire the proper supplies, which he did slowly over a period of time. He had relationships at the hotel, which meant he wasn't an anomaly coming in. People didn't question him. He he had done all of these things to carry out this mass attack. So it begs the questions: How do we prevent that from happening again? Right? He didn't set off any warning bells. There was no great red flags about him. By all extent, he was an average middle-aged white man. But here's what we can do. The things that went right for us that night is we were very well trained, and not just the police. Listen, as much as I love to tease the fire department because we have a, you know this you know police and fire relationship, we started training with our fire department over a decade ago.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
We started training with them in terrorism protocols, response protocols, what we do on mass casualty incidents, and what and more importantly, what they're going to do. And I have to give it to them. Our fire department got a grant, and they all had bulletproof vests on the rig. So the night that one October unfolded, our fire department knew our plan. We knew theirs. They had bulletproof vests. They put them on. We put together rescue task forces where we went in. We took them into the warm zone. We rescued people. They saved lives. That night, I promise you the training, the confidence, and the understanding we had saved lives. And I have to give the fire department all the credit in the world because they stepped up and they were absolutely heroic in partnership with our police officers out there. And listen, there was plenty of community members that were stepped up and did heroic acts as well, but the training paid off. But what we learned was we needed to have better communication and plans with the hotels, how we use you know elevators, how we communicate with their camera systems. All of these things became very very important, and I think that how we prevent the attack going forward is we have better plans in place. We we know that we are a target, like you said. We know that somebody else is looking at us, trying to figure out how to exploit our vulnerabilities. And every day, we're trying to tighten that and make sure that we have a plan for any of those spaces we haven't yet considered.
Robert Riggs
You know, and because we don't know a motive, the why, it just feeds conspiracy theories where people want to come up with their own answer as to why it
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
does, and I don't I don't buy into it for one second. Listen, as the event unfolded, my boss called and said, "I need you to come out here and be the incident commander at the Route 91 lot. Come handle it and lock it down. So anytime somebody comes to me with the word conspiracy theory, yes, I don't want to hear anything about it because I saw those bodies with headshots laying on the field that night. I walked with the fire department as we declared them deceased, as they did. I saw them. I saw their families drop to their knees in horror. I saw the blood-torn people coming off the field. You know, there's not one ounce of me that doesn't understand very clearly how real that night was, and my brothers and sisters that went through the door and dealt with Stephen Paddock-they're heroes, right? They they they didn't pause for one moment. They had a plan, they put it together, and they handled business and they saved lives. So conspiracy theories are people that need to get a hobby, a job, and connect to something bigger than themselves, other than conspiracies.
Robert Riggs
Do you know this is the first time I've ever heard of a fire department having bullet-resistant vest?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
It's awesome. It gives them confidence and an added layer of protection. Why wouldn't we?
Robert Riggs
Yes, because you know paramedics-they don't want to go near these things because they're afraid. I
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
tell you what, Las Vegas first responders operate on a different level, and it's it's pretty neat to see. But that comes with years of training. It comes with that communication and collaborative effort. It really does.
Robert Riggs
So, as we get near the end here, do do you have any advice for visitors to Vegas of how to remain safe?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Well, look, I mean, we've been through a lot of Las Vegas slogans, right? What happens here stays here. We thought we thought that was a great idea until it wasn't. But please come to our city. It's a safe, wonderful city, and never forget. For all the police officers we have, there's five security officers for every police officer, maybe even more. These hotels use the best technology. They go, they they go out of their way to ensure the safety of our visitors. There's, there's no way I would tell you that there's anything wrong with our city. We, we really work very hard to protect it. We're down in homicides. We're. One of the only cities in the country last year that went down in violent crime, because we really do use everything at our fingertips when it comes to intelligence-led policing and technology and community-based programs to stay in front of crime. So I think that if people are going to come here, be mindful that you don't leave your drink, never leave your drink, ladies, in a bar or anywhere else, take it with you. Don't leave it if you go to the bathroom, because the truth is, there are still those that wish to cause harm. There are still those that want to put. I think what do we call it in high school? Roofies, or yeah, I think they have they have more.
Robert Riggs
Same thing here in Dallas. It's every it's everywhere.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
It's everywhere, right? I do have to ask.
Robert Riggs
So we we have a large part of our audience as women, and I've got to ask you, how did you reach to this level? You know, you certainly broke a glass ceiling because I've seen policing over the years how difficult it was for women, and and what brought you to law enforcement?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
I love this question, Robert. It gives me a chance to really talk about how blessed I am. I'll answer the second part of your question first. I've wanted to be a police officer since I was three. I fell in love with Larry Wilcox and Eric Estrada. Do you know that show? Oh
Robert Riggs
yeah. Was that Chips?
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
That was Chips. That's Chips. John Baker and Poncharello, and I like to make the joke. Everybody, everybody liked Ponch, but listen, I was from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where everybody looked like Ponch. I had never seen anybody look like John Baker, so he was my guy, and I was enthralled with how they rolled up and just saved the world. And I told my mom. I very clearly remember saying to her one day, "That will be me. And she was like, "Yeah, yeah, okay. And that that never faltered. I've never wanted to do anything else, and I always lived my life as though I was going to get a security clearance, you know. And I was very, very methodical about it. And I've never been sorry. The second part of that is, how did I rise to this level? Well, the answer is is is is layered. The first is work ethic, and this is what I tell folks all the time. You can't beat work ethic, right? You can you can take away a lot of things from folks, but I outwork them at every level. I come to work earlier, stay later, I work harder, and I I really take pride in that. The second thing is passion. I try to lead with passion because life is so short, my career is so short that I feel like if I have passion for my mission, it will propel it forward much quicker. And with that passion is vision, right? You have to have vision as a leader. I know exactly where I want to go. I just I'm not. I don't tell them how I want to get there. I just tell them where I want to go. And then lastly, it's relationships. You have to have relationships, and not just in the organization, right? That matters because make no mistake about it. I would not be where I am without my mentors and the people that held me up believed in me and pushed me, maybe even kicked me in the butt, right to move forward. And
Robert Riggs
and I'm gonna I'm gonna guess those were men.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Well, my very first mentor was a woman named Kathy O'Connor.
Robert Riggs
Okay,
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
and she was the second deputy chief, female deputy chief ever on our organization. She did 30 years, and she is the one that broke the glass ceiling for us. You know, she she did the jobs that for the first time as a woman that nobody else said a woman couldn't do it. She did it and did it well. So I owe her everything. And then coming up through the ranks, our incoming sheriff Kevin McMahill and our current sheriff Joe Lombardo have mentored me pretty much my whole career. And look, they gave me this opportunity. I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that they they believed in me. They put me here and pushed me forward. But it's also, and I just want to make this this last little comment: relationships in the in inside your organization matter so much. Not just up right with my peers and also those that are coming to be the next generation, but also in the community, I I have learned so much from our community. You know, I've had the opportunity to build these community-based programs. I've built outreach programs, religious-based programs. I'm proud to say I have a relationship in every religious community in this city, I know just about every imam, every Sikh leader, every you know rabbi, all of these folks, and and it's been so enriching for me to learn about them and understand them because in the beginning, after 911 or after all of these incidents that unfolded, from the shooting at the Sikh temple in Ohio to you know the Pulse nightclub, we didn't have these connections. But getting to go out there and remove the separation of us, the police, and them, the isolated community, has been magical, because now they pick up the phone and go. Hey, we saw this this situation or this person, and it just didn't feel right. They would have never called the police 911 on something like that. But having relationships with the police, they will call. So it has really opened doors for us. But for me personally, it's just it's educated me in a way that I could have never gotten otherwise, and I feel so blessed to serve this community that I now understand from the grassroots. So the way that I have ended up here is is some blessing from above, but it has really just been hard work, passion, and relationships.
Robert Riggs
Chief Larkin, thank you for sharing your experience with us, I really think this has been very illuminating. Back to causes of these grievance shootings, and I look forward to buying you coffee next time I'm in Las Vegas at a cocktail. Please
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
come.
Robert Riggs
Thank you so much.
Dep Chief Sasha Larkin
Thanks for having me.
Robert Riggs
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