Late Friday morning, police got a call about a drowning in the Bellagio fountain, according to Captain Dori Koren, a homeless person engaged with tourists before jumping in the fountain around 10:12 a.m.
Las Vegas police and Clark County Fire and Rescue are now investigating the drowning. A tourist tried to help the homeless who was struggling in the water. Unfortunately, the tourist was unsuccessful, and the homeless man later died in the water.
The Clark County Coroner's Office was notified and will release the identity of the man. Police identify him as a white male who was approximately forty to fifty years of age.
Metro said they don't know yet if drugs or alcohol were involved.
According to BuzzFeed
A man who was homeless drowned in the famed fountain at the Bellagio resort on the Las Vegas Strip on Friday morning, police said.
Around 10 a.m., a local “transient individual” interacted with tourists near the fountain before he entered the water, Las Vegas Police Capt. Dori Koren told reporters at a press conference. The man swam toward the middle area of the fountain, turned around when he was about halfway through, and then began to tread water as he approached the area where he entered it.
Eyewitness Kayla Eklund told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the man was talking to himself before he jumped in. When he started struggling, he shouted, “Help, help, help,” she told the newspaper. That is when she called 911. Police did not arrive at the scene for 10 to 15 minutes, she said, and by then the man had already drowned.
One bystander jumped in to try to save the man but came out of the fountain for his own safety, police said.
