MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — A California police officer who was wounded in the Route 91 Harvest festival mass shooting six years ago this month died Wednesday when a vehicle collided with his police motorcycle early Wednesday, authorities said.
Chad Swanson, 35, died after his police motorcycle was struck by a vehicle involved in a crash with another car at about 5:15 a.m. PDT, the Daily Breeze newspaper of Hermoso Beach reported.
Swanson was navigating the 405 Freeway when the driver of one vehicle hit another in the northbound lane of the highway, according to the California Highway Patrol. The second driver appeared to lose control of their vehicle and crashed into Swanson, the Daily Breeze reported.
On 10-4-23, at about 5:15am, Manhattan Beach Police Department Motorcycle Officer Chad Swanson was involved in a fatal on duty traffic collision on the 405 Freeway. pic.twitter.com/C3eZjNojHI
— Manhattan Beach PD (@manhattanbchpd) October 4, 2023
Swanson, a 13-year veteran with the Manhattan Beach Police Department, was taken to an area hospital, where he later died, KTLA-TV reported.
“He’s survived by his wife, three very little boys, his mother and father, as well as many other family members,” police department spokesperson Lt. Kelly Benjamin said at a news conference. “We’re hurting, we’re grieving.”
Benjamin told reporters that Swanson was in the crowd on Oct. 1, 2017, when a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, which overlooked the site of the Route 91 Harvest festival on the Las Vegas Strip.
The shooter killed 58 people at the site, and two more people later died from their injuries. More than 500 people were injured in what has been described as the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Benjamin said that Swanson helped remove shooting victims and other crowd members from the concert site, the Daily Breeze reported.
— Manhattan Beach PD (@manhattanbchpd) October 4, 2023
Rachael Parker, a Manhattan Beach police records technician, was killed in the shooting, according to the newspaper.
In 2017, Swanson said that bullets were whizzing around him and chaos was unfolding at a site where no one was able to take cover, the Daily Breeze reported. He was struck in the arm by a bullet fragment that hit the ground.
“I just wanted to try to help as many people as I could,” Swanson told the newspaper at the time. “At a certain point, we realized that there were no more people in the concert venue that were alive that we could help. We canvassed the whole area to make sure we didn’t miss anybody.”
“He personally was responsible for saving several lives and helping rescue victims out of that area,” Benjamin told reporters.
Manhattan Beach Mayor Richard Montgomery said that Wednesday was “a sad and emotional day for all of us here,” the Daily Breeze reported.
