Following what has been revealed to be the worst mass shooting in America, Jake Owen is speaking up about the horrors at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
The country singer was on stage Sunday night when the shooter opened fire at the concertgoers, killing at least 50 people and injuring hundreds.
Related: Donald Trump, Khloé Kardashian & More React To The Vegas Mass Shooting
Talking to CBS News, the dad-of-one described the scene of when the gunfire broke out:
“I’m just absolutely blown away. We were in the middle of it. When the shots started being fired, and you could hear it ricocheting off the top of the roof of the stage, we started just running in any direction we could, because you didn’t know where it was coming from. You didn’t know if someone was on the ground, you didn’t know where it was coming from.”
The 36-year-old further described to TODAY on Monday:
“It got faster and faster, almost like it sounded like it was an automatic rifle… That’s when you saw people fleeing. At that point, everyone on stage just started running everywhere possible. It was pretty chaotic for sure.”
He revealed he took shelter behind a car, along with 20 festival attendees:
“Just the fear in everyone’s eyes but yet the feeling of everyone looking for someone to make sure they’re ok, I’ve just never experienced anything like this before. I never thought it would be something that would be at a country music concert, something that we do day in day out, every weekend. There’s families out there. There’s kids on their parent’s shoulders. And that’s not what America’s supposed to be like.”
The performer also recalled seeing people on the ground:
“There was blood on people. You can see a couple of folks in the street that looked like they had been shot, lying there… It wasn’t something that just was quick. It was chaos for a pure 7-10 minutes.”
Jake eventually made it back to his tour bus where he waited “because you could still hear gunfire”:
“It literally was like a movie you’ve seen before that’s not real life.”
He added as Americans “I don’t think we ever truly expect something like this to happen,” since the country’s service men and women provide us the “luxury” of protecting citizens daily.
But as he continued, he refuses to let the mass shooting stop him from ever getting back on stage:
“I think it’s our duty as entertainers out here in the world to stand up for this sort of thing. They can’t keep us down. We’re not going to live in fear, not going to continue to do this, because I think part of being entertainers is bringing happiness to people.”
Speaking just hours after the shooting, he told CBS he planned on going home to be with his daughter, Pearl:
“My plans are to go home and kiss my little girl and thank God that I’m able to do that. There’s a lot of people that had little girls or family members that aren’t able to do that. I think also what I’m going to do is what I always do. I think I’m just going to get back out here on the road and try to make people smile and try to make them sing along. We as Americans are going to continue to stand up for ourselves and continue to fight along in the fight against this type of sad, ignorant things that are happening. I think it’s my duty to just not sit back and stand up and just make sure that we continue to live this beautiful free life that we’ve been given by the men and women that fight for us.”
The star also thanked first responders for getting out there so quickly:
“They did everything they could to get out here quickly as possible and take care of these people.”
Owen also shared:
“We live this life of not being scared, which I think is great, but this is reality these days. This stuff is really happening. We were all scared.”
We can’t even imagine. Our prayers are with all the victims and their loved ones.
Vegas is in our thoughts.
You can listen to some of his interview (below), and see some of his tweets following the shooting:
“I ran off stage when he was firing shots…we all laid down inside the tour bus and you could still hear him firing shots,” Jake Owen says pic.twitter.com/x2NMLKGgjK
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 2, 2017
“My plans are to go home and kiss my little girl and thank God that I’m able to do that,” Singer Jake Owen, who witnessed the shooting, says pic.twitter.com/HckDm3DYFE
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 2, 2017
On Twitter, he wrote:
Gun shots!!! Vegas. Pray to god. Love you guys. Love you Pearl.
— Jake Owen (@jakeowen) October 2, 2017
Praying for everyone here in Vegas. I witnessed the most unimaginable event tonight. We are okay. Others arent. Please pray.
— Jake Owen (@jakeowen) October 2, 2017
Gun shots were ringing off of the stage rigging and road cases. No one knew where to go..thank you LVPD and responders for keeping us safe
— Jake Owen (@jakeowen) October 2, 2017
[Image via DJDM/WENN.]
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