Las Vegas Mass Shooting
Our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by this terrible tragedy.
As reported by NBC News:
A lone gunman released a rapid-fire barrage of bullets from the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel late Sunday, killing at least 59 people and injuring at least 527 others attending a country music festival below, officials said.
It was the worst mass shooting in modern American history.
The shooter, identified by law enforcement officials as Stephen Craig Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nevada, fired shot after shot from his room at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino down on the crowd of about 22,000, sending terrified concertgoers running for their lives.
“We heard what sounded like firecrackers going off. Then all of a sudden we heard what sounded like a machine gun. People started screaming that they were hit,” witness Meghan Kearney told MSNBC. “When we started running out, there were probably a couple hundred [people] on the ground.”
She added: “People kept dropping and dropping. … People were getting shot one foot away from us. People were trying to save their friends. There were gunshots everywhere. Helping them would’ve meant that we got shot, too.”
Police responded to reports of the shooting just after 10 p.m. (1 a.m. ET). Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters Monday that authorities believe Paddock killed himself before police entered his room. Earlier, officials had said police fatally shot Paddock.
Authorities were digging into Paddock’s history. Other than a citation he received several years ago that was “handled as a normal practice” by the courts, Lombardo said, he had no criminal background.
Paddock is believed to have checked into the hotel on Thursday, Lombardo said, and had more than 16 rifles and a handgun in his room.
It was not clear whether Paddock had specifically requested a room on a high floor that overlooked the concert venue. Hotel employees had been in his room before the shooting and did not notice anything unusual, according to Lombardo.
Two broken windows could be seen from the 32nd floor of the hotel, curtains billowing out. Law enforcement officials said Paddock had connecting rooms or a suite and ran between the windows, firing out of both, either to get a different vantage point or to avoid return-fire.
They believe he smashed the windows with a something like a hammer before he started firing.
The shooting started while performer Jason Aldean was onstage. Witnesses described a chaotic scene of back-to-back bullets raining down from above, lasting for up to 10 minutes.
Fellow performer Jake Owen said he was standing about 50 feet away from Aldean when the shots started.
“It got faster and faster, almost like it was an automatic rifle,” Owen said. “At that point, everyone on stage started running everywhere.”
Owen dashed by victims covered in blood and eventually found shelter in his bus. The gunfire still hadn’t stopped by the time he got there, he said.
“It wasn’t something that was quick. It was chaos for a pure seven to 10 minutes,” he said.
