Jake Owen is vowing to return to the stage in the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting that left more than 50 people dead and over 400 injured at a festival hours after he performed.
“I think it’s our duty as entertainers out here in the world to stand up [to] this sort of thing,” the country singer, 36, told CBS News. “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.”
Owen took the stage at the Route 91 Harvest Festival at 8 p.m. and was then watching Jason Aldean‘s performance along with hundreds of fans when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock began firing rounds into the crowd.
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“We were in the middle of it,” Owen said. “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.”
Witnesses reported that the gunman opened fire – reportedly with a fully automatic weapon – from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Casino. Police later found Paddock dead in a Mandalay Bay hotel room, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said. Paddock is believed to have killed himself.
Owen said that once he realized someone had opened fire, he fled and hid inside a nearby tour bus with about 20 other people. He said the gunshots lasted for up to 10 minutes.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” he said. “I never thought it would be something that would be at a country music concert, something that we do day in and day out, every weekend.”
He added: “There’s families out there. There’s kids on their parents’ shoulders. And that’s not what America’s supposed to be like.”
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Harrowing footage of the incident showed Aldean fleeing the stage as shots rang out. Owen told CBS that he spoke with Aldean via text afterward to make sure he was okay.
In the wake of the shooting, Owen said he is grateful he gets to go home to his 4-year-old daughter Pearl.
“My plans are to go home and kiss my little girl and thank God that I’m able to do that,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that had little girls or family members that aren’t able to do that.”
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