CLAIM

During a concert in Las Vegas on 1 October 2017, a "mystery woman" warned or threatened crowds about the mass shooting that took place shortly afterwards.

MOSTLY FALSE

RATING

MOSTLY FALSE

WHAT'S TRUE

A witness reports hearing a woman say "You're going to die" and "They're surrounding us," a short time before the mass shooting began.

WHAT'S FALSE

In a shift from her earlier televised account, that witness has subsequently said she believes the threats were specific to a small group of concert-goers and that she no longer believes the threats had any connection to the mass shooting.

ORIGIN

In the aftermath of a mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas, which killed 59 people and injured more than 500, eerie reports emerged about an unidentified woman who purportedly warned or threatened crowds that they were “all going to fucking die,” shortly before the shooting rampage began.

On 2 October 2017, British tabloid the Daily Mail reported:

A woman in the crowd screamed ‘They’re all around…You’re all going to f***ing die today’ just 45 minutes before a gunman opened fire at a Las Vegas music concert killing at least two people and injuring dozens more, DailyMail.com has learned. The woman, described as Hispanic and in her 50s, made the terrifying outburst before her and a male companion were escorted out of the venue by security. Less than an hour later automatic gunfire peppered the music festival crowd turning it into a bloodbath and sending terrified concert goers diving for cover.

This article is based on the account of one concertgoer, Breanna Hendricks, who described the woman in interviews with reporters:

Hendricks: There was a lady who pushed her way forward into the concert venue, into the first row, and she started messing with another lady and told us that we were all going to die tonight.

Reporter: Do you know why she was saying that? I mean, was this after the shots were fired?

Hendricks: It was about 45 minutes before the shots were actually fired, but then she was escorted out by security.

Reporter: How does that make you feel?

Hendricks: It makes me feel uncomfortable, especially coming here for my 21st birthday and not even knowing if I’m safe going home tomorrow on an airplane.

…

Reporter: And were you thinking ‘Oh my gosh, this woman told us that before we left’?

Hendricks: Yeah, I thought it had a positive correlation to it. Like, obviously she was telling us that either to tell us, to warn us, or to tell us that we were all going to die and she was part of it.

Hendricks was then asked to describe the woman, and replied:

Her and her boyfriend were both Hispanic. They were probably about — shorter five-footers, probably about 5’5″, 5’6″. They just looked like everyday people.

Hendricks went on to tell KSNV that the couple were escorted away from the venue by security:

…she had been messing with the lady in front of her and telling her that she was going to die — that we were all going to die. […] So they escorted her out to make her stop messing around with all the other people in front of them, but none of us knew that it was going to be serious.

Hendricks saw events differently afterward, telling us on 3 October 2017 that she no longer believes the woman’s threats and behavior were related to the shooting:

When it first happened, and it was reported that there were three shooters surrounding the area, I believed that this lady was telling us that there was going to be a shooting. But after finding out that there was only a single shooter, it’s harder to believe that she would have known. So I don’t believe now, looking at it, that she was telling us that there was going to be a shooting. I think it was just a statement that maybe she felt like she needed to throw out there because this lady would not let her into the front of the concert.

The woman had been pushing through the crowd with a male companion, trying to get as close to the front as possible, said to Hendricks. At a certain point, a group of concertgoers would not let them push through any further:

At first she said “You’re going to die,” then she said “They’re surrounding us, we’re all going to die…” She kept saying that her boyfriend couldn’t breathe — “He can’t breathe, I need to get to the front” – and whenever you looked at the boyfriend, he was back there drinking his beer. So it’s hard to think there was actually a problem going on.

Both the woman in question and her male companion looked as if they had been drinking, Hendricks told us:

You could tell he was way more intoxicated than she was.

Shawn Hendricks, Breanna’s mother, who accompanied her at the concert, told us that she had not personally heard any threats, but had overheard another man describing the threats.

Shawn Hendricks told us that she too thinks that the woman’s threats and behavior were directed at a specific group near the front of the stage, rather than threats or warnings directed toward the entire crowd. She also does not think the woman’s actions were related to the subsequent shooting.

I really feel that that was more of a personal type thing going on with some of the people that were in front of us… I overheard one of the males in the front — he turned around to another male who was behind him and they were saying that they had said something about “they’re all around us” and we’re all going to die, or something to that effect — we’re all going to die, or we’re dead, or something like that. But I think it was more centered just on that group of people… It seemed like she was more focused on another girl that was up a little bit further and that she was really messing with her, and the other people were kind of trying to keep her away from her. So that’s why I thought it was more of a personal type thing.

After the shooting started, there were reports and rumors on the ground that the attack was coming from multiple assailants firing from more than one direction. Shawn and Breanna Hendricks decided they should provide statements to police officers about the earlier threat just in case there was a connection, which they did:

[We thought] there may be something to this, and there may not…We were just more directing [the police] that they need to speak to the security officers, that the girls in front of us were talking to. I think [the threats] were just directed at a small group of people that were right there in the crowd…It didn’t seem like a mass ‘Hey, I’m going to kill everybody in here.’ Nothing like that.

Breanna Hendricks, who has faced criticism and scrutiny on social media for her earlier statements to the media, emphasized to us that she did not give her account publicly in order to garner attention in the media, that she had reported what she saw to the police, and that she was not motivated by any racial or ethnic prejudice:

I don’t have anything against anyone.