LAS VEGAS (AP) — Following an hours-long confrontation in a room at the Caesars Palace resort on the Las Vegas Strip, police say a man was arrested and the woman described as his hostage was released unhurt.
Police did not immediately confirm whether the man taken into custody was armed when the incident occurred in a high-rise tower of the renowned Las Vegas Strip complex because there were no casualties recorded. Visitors in the swimming pool area below were startled when furniture, couches, and other items fell from a window on the 21st level.
“The subject is now in police custody. The female is with officers right now,” the department stated in posts made Tuesday afternoon. According to Officer Aden Ocampo Gomez, the woman didn’t seem hurt.
According to Capt. Stephen Connell of the Las Vegas police, the standoff at the Las Vegas Strip started around 9:15 a.m. accompanied by a hotel security report stating that a man and woman were fighting and that the male had “forcefully” dragged the woman into a room.
Connell stated that it was not immediately evident whether the individual was armed when police SWAT personnel closed the hallway outside the room.
During the incident on the Las Vegas Strip, Connell told reporters that the hostage woman had “been heard from” and was reportedly “still OK.”
Visitors heard glass breaking outside and observed draperies billowing from a broken window about two-thirds of the way up the 29-story Palace Tower, one of Caesars Palace’s six towers and an iconic and significant landmark of the Las Vegas Strip. The resort offers close to 4,000 rooms.
On her first day of vacation on the Las Vegas Strip from Appleton, Wisconsin, Emma Snyder, 24, claimed she was near a resort swimming pool when she heard three loud bangs and noticed glass falling. She remarked that it appeared to glitter.
People were simply gazing skyward, she claimed.
In Chattanooga, Tennessee, Beverly Blackwell, 56, and her husband Chris were relaxing by a pool when they heard glass smash and saw draperies fluttering from the broken window.
“When we saw the window shatter it was kind of a surreal feeling, it got pretty scary,” said Blackwell. “We were instructed to quickly pack up and leave the back.” This was the first hostage drama they have encountered at Las Vegas Strip.
According to Snyder and Blackwell, there could be a shooter or an attack, they both told The Associated Press. The guests were screamed at to leave the pool area by staff.
A coffee machine, a hair dryer, and a desk bureau, according to Snyder, flew out the window as some individuals hid by a stairway.
According to Blackwell, after 30 minutes, people were informed that they may go back to their rooms.
According to Associated Press writer John Marshall, who was vacationing with his family in a hotel on the fifth floor of the Palace Tower of the Las Vegas Strip, broken glass and furniture fell sporadically for approximately an hour.
Marshall and his family were informed by hotel staff that the event only affected the 21st floor and that there was no need to evacuate or restrict movement for guests on lower floors.
The pool area has not been the subject of any initial complaints of injuries, according to OcampoGomez, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Strip police.
Despite not receiving any initial information about what was happening from the hotel, Marshall claimed that he and his family remained in their room out of an abundance of caution. He claimed that hotel housekeeping service employees were still at work in adjoining rooms.
AP’s requests for comment through phone and email to hotel representatives were not promptly answered.