Comic shot dead in Las Vegas

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on October 22nd, 2013

We were hanging out at the Laugh Factory until late Sunday night. When we awoke the next morning, we read a headline that alluded to a shooting at a hotel/casino on the Vegas strip, but we thought that it alluded to another Strip shooting earlier in the year (not that there’s been that many– there’s been two this year– but we thought it was old news).

But this was a fresh incident, at Bally’s. Some dude went into a nightclub, asked the doorman to waive the cover so he could check out if there was a crowd. He eventually paid the cover, then went in… and when he emerged, he was angry that there was a less than packed house and he drew a gun.

Two security guards were wounded, but not fatally. When a patron emerged from the club and witnessed the mayhem, he jumped onto the assailant and tried to stop the shooting. He took one to the chest/neck. And he died.

Turns out the hero was a comedian, Kenneth Brown, who went by the name “Kd Brown.” According to the report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, he had recently moved to Vegas from Los Angeles, “and worked as a club promoter and stand-up comedian.” We hear that he was regular at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. The story quotes from Norma Sattiewhite, Brown’s mother. Brown was her only child.

Needless to say, we’re shaken by this. We didn’t know Brown. But the comics around here who knew Brown are grieving.