LAS VEGAS, Nev. (KLAS/CNN) – A veteran police officer who responded to the Mandalay Bay hotel on the night of the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017 has lost his job.
Officials say then-Officer Cordell Hendrex should have acted faster and could have saved lives if he had done so. But the police union says his actions complied with Las Vegas Police Department policy at the time.
Now, Officer Hendrex he is fighting to get his job back.
“He was terminated from our organization because we don’t believe he performed at the level that we trained him to,” Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said. “We train our officers in a variety of different ways and we believe we provided the training to all of our officers and we see that played out in many other body cams. In this particular case, particularly with the responsibility of having a trainee along with him, we didn’t believe that he met the standards of conduct for the organization.”
Body camera video released by Metro last year shows Hendrex, along with a trainee and a few armed hotel security go to the 31st floor of Mandalay Bay. As the gunman unloads bullets on the floor above, Hendrex appears to hesitate.
The Las Vegas Police Protective Association defends Hendrex’s actions. The union’s president, Steve Grammas, claims Hendrex followed training protocol. “When he got there, that’s when he found out it was above him and he was sitting there making decisions on containment and what he needed to do on the floor there. We don’t just rush in to potentially add to a body count,”
Grammas said. “At the time when Officer Hendrex was trained, they were trained that the only way you attack a bad guy like that would be through a four-man element, nothing less.”
Grammas added training has since changed for that type of situation and he commends Hendrex for his choices that night. “He’s not a coward,” Grammas said. “He’s an officer, he’s a human being, that was in a situation with a very, very, violent encounter.”
The case is currently in arbitration and a decision is not expected for several months.
58 people were killed during the shooting on October 1st, 2017.
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