It was a veritable arsenal that the man behind the las Vegas massacre possessed — as many as 42 firearms, with 23 of them in his 32nd floor hotel room and 19 more with thousands of rounds of ammunition and other explosives at his home in a quiet retirement community 125 km away in the Nevada countryside.
The chilling facts about Stephen Paddock, the killer who turned out to be a wealthy man and a high-flying gambler, emerged on a day when the much-loved “Sin City” of casinos and nightclubs mourned the dead with candle light vigils and people lined up outside hospitals for hours to donate blood for the injured.
At least 12 of the 104 injured admitted to the city’s premier hospital and trauma centre — University Medical Centre —remained in critical condition. The overall death toll in the carnage as of early Tuesday was put at 59 dead and 527 injured, with many of them admitted to other city hospitals.
The law enforcement authorities were still clueless on the motive behind the massacre as the killer did not appear to have any criminal record until Sunday night. Quizzed on the issue, Sheriff Joseph lombardo said dismissively that he could not “get into the mind of a psychopath at this point”.
The shooter’s brother, Eric Paddock, who appeared bewildered at the turn of events, told media networks that Stephen Paddock had no political or religious leanings, but was a rich man who made money in real estate deals and someone who spent much of his time going on cruises and playing video poker.
“We’re still just completely befuddled. Dumbstruck,” Eric Paddock said in Orlando, Florida, saying his brother “had nothing to do with any political organisation, religious organisation, no white supremacist, nothing, as far as I know. And I’ve only known him for 57 years.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, disputing the claim of ISIS, also said that there was no evidence so far that the shooter had ties to any international terrorist organisation. “Right now, we believe it’s a sole actor, a lone-wolf type actor,” Sheriff lombardo told reporters.
While Paddock himself did not have a prior criminal record, reports say his late father was a convicted bank robber, who escaped from prison in the 1960s and was added to the FBI’s list of “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list. He was someone described as “psychopathic” with suicidal tendencies, according to the Arizona Republic.
The twice-divorced Paddock and his longtime girlfriend, Marilou Danley, had lived together in at least three different retirement communities. Neighbours were quoted as saying that the couple would leave the properties empty for long stretches as Paddock visited casinos.
Although Danley, currently away in Japan, was not being sought as “a person of interest” in connection with the massacre investigation, officials indicated she will be
questioned in respect of Paddock’s activities.
The Vegas carnage and the arsenal that Paddock had assembled once again revived the debate on America’s gun culture and the loose gun control laws that the US Congress never addresses in meaningful fashion because of the sharp political divide on the issue.
Democrats have all along attacked the Republicans for thwarting the effort to beef up gun control laws.
Google, Facebook, Twitter failed to curb fake news
San Francisco: Technology giants Google, Facebook and Twitter — already facing flak for presence of false news on their platforms — failed miserably to stop publishing fake news related to las Vegas massacre in which at least 59 people died and over 400 injured, media reported on Tuesday. According to a report in technology website Siliconbeat, Google returned a search result from a shady online forum “4chan” that named the wrong man as killer. “While Facebook’s ‘Safety Check’ feature confronted users with far-right blogs that spat out false information about victims and the shooter, Twitter displayed false rumours and information about ‘missing’ people who were not connected to the episode,” the report said.
loved ones mourn victims of vegas shooting attack
Mesquite: They were school teachers and youth football coaches, real estate agents and local business owners. They were parents, siblings, husbands, wives, neighbours and friends.
They traveled to las Vegas to see their favorite stars, posting videos and photos to social media.
At least 59 of them never made it home after a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of a las Vegas hotel onto a crowd of more than 22,000 below at a country music festival.