More than 59 people were killed and at least 527 others injured after a gunman opened fire Sunday night at a country music festival opposite the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, authorities said.
Posted October 2nd, updated October 3rd:
Police released the updated death toll in the early morning hours after a horrific night of violence that turned a concert into a scene of carnage. Though initial reports put the death toll at 20, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police tweeted later that at least 50 were dead. But the death toll as now raised to 59 dead and from 400 to 527 injured in hospitals, with twelve in critical conditions.
Police said the suspect, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, a resident of Mesquite, Nev., was killed after a SWAT team burst into the hotel room from which he was firing at the crowd.
“Right now we believe it’s a solo act, a lone wolf attacker,” Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said. “We are pretty confident there is no longer a threat.” The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is a joint city-county force headed by the sheriff.
Authorities said the gunman appeared to have begun firing at 10:08 p.m. from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel toward the concert venue across the street.
Officers entered the room and engaged the suspect and “he is dead, currently,” Lombardo said, adding that authorities have no evidence of a motive. “We don’t know what his belief system was at this time.”
Police said they have succeeded in locating a woman, identified as Marilou Danley, who was believed to be traveling with Paddock and is listed as living at his address in Mesquite, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. “We are confident we have located the female person of interest,” the department said on Twitter.
Mesquite Police Officer Quinn Averett, a spokesman for the department, said about 10 Mesquite officers were at the home early Monday morning, holding a perimeter.
Authorities found several firearms in the suspect’s hotel room, Lombardo said.
One of the dead is an off-duty police officer who was attending the concert, Lombardo said. Several other officers from Nevada and California, both on and off duty, were wounded by gunfire, officials said.
“A tragic and heinous act of violence has shaken the Nevada family,” Gov. Brian Sandoval said on Twitter. “Our prayers are with the victims and all affected by this act of cowardice.”
President Trump tweeted his “warmest condolences and sympathies” to the victims and their families.
University Medical Center spokeswoman Danita Cohen said the hospital was treating “many patients” with gunshot wounds in the wake of the shooting. There were so many that citizens were arriving at the emergency room with gunshot victims loaded into their cars, local media reported.
The Clark County Fire Department estimated that approximately 406 people were transported to area hospitals.
Authorities established a command post and triage center, and shut down parts of the Strip in the hours after the shooting. Hotel guests blocked from returning to their hotels were shuttled to a center equipped with metal detectors.
Police initially investigated reports of a “suspicious device” down the street, outside the Luxor Hotel, but said later there appeared to be no explosive devices related to the incident, other than that used by the SWAT team breaching the room where the suspect was.
When the shooting started the country music festival was underway across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Mandalay Bay. The Jason Aldean performance was underway when a sudden gunfire shots errupted.
Some witnesses say the shots appeared to be coming from an upper floor of the hotel. Dozens of people dropped to the ground, screaming, while others ran, some in pairs or in groups with their arms linked.
The shooting went on for more than 30 seconds before the music stopped, and another burst was heard later.
“Get down, stay down,” one woman shouted. “Let’s go,” another voice said. Another wave of gunshots followed soon after.
Aldean was quickly pulled off stage, and soon after the band was brought off as well.
Two men near Mandalay Bay said they heard someone in a helicopter with a bullhorn yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” as the incident unfolded. Others said they saw police and SWAT teams streaming into the hotel.
Aldean, who was into his fourth or fifth song when the shooting began. The crowd began to stampede.
Alarm spread up and down the Strip as news of the shootings spread.
Everyone just took off running from the White Castle and the hotel” said a witness. “Employees and customers went downstairs to hide in the break room. We were here now, 15 of us, with customers. We were safe but we did not know what was happening.”
The entire area was put on lockdown.
Several off-duty Bakersfield police officers were attending the concert when the gunfire began, officials said. Bakersfield Police Lt. Jeff Burdick said they were not in a position to return fire.
One Bakersfield officer was wounded the gunfire and was taken to a hospital for treatment, but is expected to survive, Burdick said.
“Our officers were actually attending the concert as civilians,” Burdick said, adding that the agency has accounted for every officer known to be there.
Officials at McCarran International Airport reported that some flights were diverted in the immediate aftermath of the shootings. “Expect delays,” the airport said on Twitter.
Hospital personnel across Las Vegas were paged to work, local media reported.
Parts of Interstate 15 near the Strip were also shut down, and hotel guests across the city were being ordered to shelter in place. The freeway reopened later, but off ramps near the Strip remained closed through much of the night.
The shooter prepared well in advance, made a transfer of $100k to the Philippines in the days before the shooting, were is girlfriend is from, set up cameras at his hotel room to see possible people coming to his room, and he had devices attached to 12 weapons allowing semiautomatic rifles to mimic fully automatic gunfire.
