Thread: Vegas massacre: More than 50 dead, 400 hurt in worst mass shooting in US history

(Update) Vegas massacre: More than 58 dead, 500+ hurt in worst mass shooting in US history

Vegas massacre: More than 50 dead in worst mass shooting in US history

Monday, 2 October 2017, 11:16 PM


By Reuters - October 2, 2017 @ 7:06pm

LAS VEGAS: A gunman killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 200 at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday, raining down rapid fire from the 32nd floor of a hotel for several minutes before he was shot dead by police.

A body lies under a sheet as fire and rescue personnel gather at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Ave. after a mass shooting at a country music festival nearby in Las Vegas, Nevada. AFP

The death toll, which police emphasized was preliminary and tentative, would make the attack the deadliest mass shooting in US history, eclipsing last year's massacre of 49 people at an Orlando night club.

Thousands of panicked people fled the scene, in some cases trampling one another as law enforcement officers scrambled to locate and kill the gunman. Shocked concertgoers, some with blood on their clothes, wandered the streets after the attack.

A handout photo made available by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department on 02 October 2017 shows Sheriff Joe Lombardo (2nd right) speaking during a press briefing in the aftermath of the active shooter incident on Las Vegas Boulevard. EPA-EFF

The suspect was a local Las Vegas man who acted alone and was not believed to be connected to any militant group, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters.

"We have no idea what his belief system was," Lombardo said. "Right now, we believe he was the sole aggressor and the scene is static."

This undated portrait released on October 2 by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police shows Marilou Danley the alleged roommate of the gunman that killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 200 others during a country music concert as she is being sought for questionning. AFP

Authorities were seeking a woman they named as Marilou Danley, the suspected gunman's roommate. Lombardo described her as Asian, 4 foot 11 inches (1.5 m) tall, 111 pounds (50 kg). He gave no details of whether she was suspected of involvement in the attack but described her as an "associate".

An injured person is tended to in the intersection of Tropicana Ave. and Las Vegas Boulevard. AFP

Police had located two cars that belonged to the suspect and also believed they had located the woman.

Lombardo said rumours of other shootings or explosives such as car bombs in the area were false. Video taken of the attack showed panicked crowds fleeing as sustained rapid gunfire ripped through the area.

Las Vegas's casinos, nightclubs and shopping draw some 3.5 million visitors from around the world each year and the area was packed with visitors when the shooting broke out shortly after 10 pm (0400 GMT).

Mike McGarry, a 53-year-old financial adviser from Philadelphia, said he was at the concert when he heard hundreds of shots ring out.

"It was crazy - I laid on top of the kids. They're 20. I'm 53. I lived a good life," McGarry said. The back of his shirt bore footmarks, after people ran over him in the panicked crowd. -- REUTERS

https://www.nst.com.my/world/2017/10/286643/update-vegas-massacre-more-50-dead-400-hurt-worst-mass-shooting-us-history







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A body lies under a sheet as fire and rescue personnel gather at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Ave. after a mass shooting at a country music festival nearby in Las Vegas, Nevada.




People scramble for shelter at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival after the shooting incident. AFP


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Unreal.

Las Vegas deadly mass shooting gunman identified as Stephen ...

abc7.com/what-we-know-about-las-vegas-mass-shooting-gunman/2478338/

The gunman responsible for killing at least 50 people and injuring more than 400 at a crowded country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip has been identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock. ... Paddock was a Mesquite, Nevada resident, which is located about an hour outside Las Vegas ...

Las Vegas shooting: What we know about suspect Stephen Paddock



MATTHEW MOSK, ALEX HOSENBALL and EMILY SHAPIRO

Good Morning America October 2, 2017


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Stephen Paddock, 64, is the man suspected of killing more than 50 people and injuring more than 400 in Las Vegas on Sunday night in what is now believed to be the worst mass shooting in US history, police said today.

According to police, the shooter opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino at a large crowd of more than 20,000 concertgoers across the street attending the final night of the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival.

Witnesses described the shooting as "nonstop gunfire,” suggesting the use of automatic or semi-automatic weapons.


PHOTO:Las Vegas strip shooting after a gunman opens fire near Mandalay Bay casino, Oct 1, 2017. (ABC News) More

Police responded to the scene Sunday night and breached the suspect's hotel room and found the suspect dead. Officials said they did not believe there were any more shooters.

Police said "numerous firearms" were found in Paddock's hotel room at Mandalay Bay.

Police had been seeking to question the suspect’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, 62, who appears to have lived with Paddock in Mesquite, Nev., about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, but authorities do not believe she was involved in the shooting as she was located out of the country.

Las Vegas strip shooting: More than 50 dead, 400 injured after gunman opens fire near Mandalay Bay casino
Las Vegas mass shooting: Country music stars pray for victims after gunman kills at least 20 near concert

The motive for the shooting remains unclear. Police said Paddock had no criminal history, save a minor citation. He appears to have worked as an accountant or auditor and was at one point employed by a company that later become Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest defense contractors.

"Stephen Paddock worked for a predecessor company of Lockheed Martin from 1985 until 1988," the company tells ABC in a statement. "We’re cooperating with authorities to answer questions they may have about Mr. Paddock and his time with the company."

Paddock was also a licensed hunter and private pilot. He owned an aircraft that he kept at Mesquite Metro Airport in Texas from 2007 to 2009.

“I do not recall that he was ever a person who created any problems for us,” the airport director told ABC News. “He kept his accounts up to date and we never had any problems with him here."


PHOTO: Stephen Paddock, seen here in a photo posted on Facebook by his girlfriend in September 2014, has been identified as the suspect in Sunday's mass shooting in Las Vegas. (Obtained by ABC News) More

Eric Paddock, the suspected shooter’s brother, told ABC News that the family was completely “dumbstruck” by the news, likening the revelation to being “crushed by an asteroid.”

“We have no idea how or why this happened,” Eric Paddock said. “As far as we know, Steve was perfectly fine.”

Officers also responded to the suspect's home and executed a search warrant, where police said they found additional weapons and ammunition.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/las-vegas-...opstories.html

At a mid-morning press conference, Clark County Sheriff said the death toll in Sunday's mass shooting had risen to 58, and the number of wounded to 515.

October 2, 2017 11:44am EDT
Police: No known link between shooter and any foreign terror group

A police official told reporters this morning that investigators have not found a link between shooter Stephen Paddock and any foreign terrorist group.
He added that this shooting will be "factually" and "thoroughly" investigated.

Another report stated he was known to have psychological problems. And his brother said he had one rifle and hand guns. After moving to Nevada, apparently he bought 10 rifles. Unfortunately, the state does not require registration or permits. Buying 10 rifles would have set off some alarm bells if they did. His father was a violent bank robber on the FBIs most wanted list in the '60s.

Before Las Vegas shooting, gunman was settling into retirement

Jonathan Allen
10/2/17

(Reuters) - At first glance, it seemed Stephen Paddock, 64, was set for a quiet life in a retirement community in Mesquite, amid the red desert hills of Nevada where he had bought a new home in 2015 near his beloved casinos.

From there, it was only an hour’s drive to Las Vegas, where he embarked Sunday on the worst mass shooting in recent U.S. history before killing himself.

His brother, Eric Paddock, said he was a peaceful man who moved back to Nevada, where gambling is legal, partly because of his fondness for video poker.

“He’s never drawn his gun, it makes no sense,” Paddock said from his doorstep in Orlando, Florida. His brother had a couple of handguns he kept in a safe, perhaps a long rifle, “but no automatic weapons.”

Eric Paddock said he had helped his brother move away from Central Florida’s humidity to Nevada. The two were last in touch last month, texting about power outages after Hurricane Irma slammed into Florida.

Their father was Patrick Benjamin Paddock, a violent bank robber who was on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted list in the 1960s, NBC News reported.

The shooter himself had no criminal record apart from a traffic violation, police in Las Vegas said.

A former neighbor named Sharon Judy in Viera, Florida, told the Orlando Sentinel that Stephen Paddock was a friendly man who said he was a professional gambler. He had shown her a picture of him after he won a $20,000 slot-machine jackpot, she said.

In recent weeks, Paddock made gambling transactions worth tens of thousands of dollars, though it was unclear whether they were wins or losses, NBC News reported, citing unnamed law enforcement officials.

‘NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY’
Public records point to an itinerant existence across the American West and Southeast: A few years in California, a few years in other parts of Nevada.

Paddock had a hunting license in Texas, where he lived for a while. He got his pilot license, and had at least one single-engine aircraft registered in his name.

In early 2015, he bought a modest two-story home in a new housing development for retirees on the dusty edge of Mesquite, a small desert town popular with golfers and gamblers that straddles the Nevada border with Arizona.

“It’s a nice, clean home and nothing out of the ordinary,” Quinn Averett, a Mesquite police department spokesman, told reporters on Monday. Some guns and ammunition were found inside, though nothing remarkable in a region where gun ownership is high.

An hour’s drive southwest is Las Vegas, where Paddock checked into a 32nd-floor room at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino last Thursday with at least 10 rifles for a shooting spree that would kill least 58 people and hurt more than 500.

The FBI said he had no connection with international militant groups.
Before moving to Mesquite, Nevada, he lived in another town called Mesquite in Texas, where he worked as the manager of an apartment complex called Central Park.

Records as recent as 2015 list Paddock as single, though it appears he may have married while living in California in the 1980s. Police and public records said he lived with Marilou Danley in the Nevada retirement community. Police said she had no connection with the attack, CNN reported.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKCN1C71I1

Moved to Other News - off topic in General Discussion.

This is the most important story in America today and needs to get maximum coverage.

This is the most bizarre of all shootings. This guy was an accountant, worked for Lockheed Martin for awhile. No social media stuff, lived different places, Florida, California, moved to Nevada to get out of Florida humidity, managed some apartments, likes to gamble, likes to hunt, no political or religious fanaticism, owned a couple of hand guns, apparently some hunting rifles. No military background. Has owned a couple of planes, loves Vegas to gamble and enjoys country music, so it makes perfect sense he would be there to enjoy the festival and do some gambling. It's a strange one, it really makes you wonder ...