5 Injured in Vegas Casino Shooting

A man on a walkway over the New York-New York casino floor opened fire on the gamblers below early Friday, July 6, 2007, wounding four people before he was tackled by officers and patrons, police said. (AP Graphic) (Associated Press)

Sixteen shots were fired before the gunman was subdued by two off-duty military reservists and two Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agents. Dillon identified the servicemen as Justin Lampert, a North Dakota Army National Guard member from Crosby, N.D., and David James, a Navy reservist from Jacksonville, Fla.

The Florida authorities, brothers Robert and Paul Ura, joined the reservists to disarm and subdue Zegrean, Dillon said.

"Absolutely, these men are heroes," Dillon said.

Lampert and James declined to speak with the media. A spokeswoman for the Florida agency said the Ura brothers would not be available for comment until they returned to their Tampa office on Monday.

All the injuries were described as minor, and none of the victims remained hospitalized. A woman and a teenage boy were wounded; a man was grazed by a bullet; a woman was hit by a bullet fragment or shrapnel; and a woman was bruised and scraped when she fell amid the crowd of people exiting the casino, Dillon said.

Troy Sanchez, a 13-year-old from Van Nuys, Calif., who was wounded in the left ankle, said he heard more than 10 gunshots from a balcony over an escalator that takes customers to the casino floor. He was with his mother and older brother, who works at the casino's Manhattan Express roller coaster.

"We thought it was fireworks," the teenager said. "I didn't even see the guy at all."

Sanchez and Jacobson's cousin, who declined to be identified, were treated at University Medical Center in Las Vegas and released. Dillon said both people with graze wounds and the woman who was bruised in the crowd were treated at the scene and released.

Larry Ramos, 33, a tourist from Lansing, Mich., said he arrived at the front of the hotel to find people rushing out.

"There were flip-flops just laying all over the place like people were running out of their shoes," Ramos said. "Within a minute and a half there were 30 to 40 police there. The cops just swarmed the place with M-16s and their guns out."

Ramos said bystanders cheered for the wounded when they were wheeled out of the casino to ambulances, and later talked about the people who tackled the gunman.

"People don't put up with stuff after 9-11 no more," he said, adding that he was surprised that the casino never shut down.

"That's what amazed me, Ramos said. "They locked down the tables, but they let people still keep playing the slots."

The 2,000-room hotel-casino, which opened in 1997, features a facade replicating the New York City skyline, with a 47-story knockoff of the Empire State Building, a 150-foot Statue of Liberty and a Coney Island-style roller coaster. It is owned by MGM Mirage Inc.

Casino spokeswoman Yvette Monet said its operations had been fully restored by Friday morning.