Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Saturday

Interview With Larry Tunforss of Bullhead City, AZ Fire Department

Aired April 27, 2002 - 12:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Now more on the gun and knife fight at that Nevada casino. It started during the annual Riverrun gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts in Laughlin. It ended with four people dead and many injured.

Joining us by phone is Larry Tunforss of the Bullhead City, Arizona Fire Department. Bullhead City is just across the river from Laughlin. Thanks for joining us.

LARRY TUNFORSS, BULLHEAD CITY FIRE DEPT.: Good morning.

WHITFIELD: All right. Explain exactly what happened.

TUNFORSS: Well, the Bullhead City Fire Department got a call at about 2:23 this morning for a mutual aid response to Laughlin, Nevada for an incident that involved multiple victims of a gunshot. We responded with five ambulances with battalion chief and the fire chief himself.

We transported a total of six people to the Western Arizona Regional Medical Hospital in Bullhead City. The American Medical Response Unit in Laughlin also transported people to the hospital. They ended up with 10 victims of this incident at the Western Arizona Regional Medical Center. Two of them -- excuse me, three of them were flown from the hospital, out of the hospital to trauma wards in Las Vegas. The remaining there have gone through surgery.

We ended up with a total of seven gunshot wounds, one trauma to the skull, one stabbing victim and one with chest pains; all of them were males. There were four dead at the scene at the Harris casino in Laughlin, and I can confirm that all of those were males and none of those were employees.

The town of Laughlin was locked down for quite a while until the Las Vegas Metro could make heads or tails of it, exactly what happened there. At this point in time, the town is reopened, although Las Vegas Metro still has Harris shut down, and they're still going through the building and they're still working with the guests and the members tat might have been involved in this.

WHITFIELD: Larry, you said the town has not reopened?

TUNFORSS: No, the town has reopened, with the exception of Harris.

WHITFIELD: OK. Do we have a better understanding perhaps of what exactly sparked this problem, and was it indeed rival gangs or rival motorcycle groups?

TUNFORSS: My understanding is that it is indeed rival motorcycle groups. What sparked it? I have no idea what took place on the casino floor or what caused one person to pull a gun at somebody else, but unfortunately we have four people dead and seven with gunshot wounds.

WHITFIELD: All right. And we're still looking for a motive and still looking for more to arrest possibly, right?

TUNFORSS: Well, when I left the casino at about 2:45, there were close to 100 people being detained. Many of them were handcuffed; some of them were spread eagle on the casino floor.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department did bring in an additional 300 officers for this event, and most of them were at the casino at that time of the morning, as you can imagine with that type of shooting going on. So I'm sure a lot of these people were being detained and being questioned so they could find out what exactly took place.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you so much, Larry Tunforss, for joining us from the Bullhead City, Arizona Fire Department on the phone there.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com