PARTY STRIP CARNAGE
Australian woman questioned
AN AUSTRALIAN woman was last night linked to the worst mass shooting in American history.
Former Gold Coast woman Marilou Danley was located in Las Vegas after her identification was reportedly found in the room of shooter Stephen Paddock, 64, the gunman responsible for the Mandalay Bay massacre.
At least 50 people were killed and more than 200 injured by Paddock, who shot into a crowd of thousands from his hotel room above an outdoor country music festival.
The Nevada local was shot dead by police in a 32nd floor room of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino at least half an hour after the massacre started about 10pm local time.
Chilling video footage showed the crowd at the closing act of the threeday Route 91 Harvest country music festival in an outside concert venue fleeing hundreds of rounds of automatic gunfire coming from a hotel room above them.
“It was a horror show,” said Ivetta Saldana, who was at the Jason Aldean concert with a friend. “People were standing around then they hit the floor.”
One police officer was in critical condition and two others were feared dead, according to Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardi.
“We believe there are a couple of off- duty officers that were attending the concert who may have been killed,” he said.
One reveller told reporters a woman had come running through the crowd 45 minutes before the first shots were fired screaming, “You’re all going to die tonight”.
The gunman fired from a room on the 32nd upper floor of the 43- storey Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, across Las Vegas Boulevard from the all- ages outdoor concert.
Witness Meghan Kearney said she saw “hundreds of bodies” as she fled shots that “sounded like they were coming from the sky”.
“We heard what sounded like firecrackers going off, like someone setting off a firecracker,” concert attendee Ms Kearney said.
“All of a sudden we heard what sounded like a machine gun and people just started to scream that they were hit and to get down.
“About 20 seconds after that you would hear a round of machine gunfire and people just dropping and hundreds of bodies all over the ground.”
Ms Kearney said organisers spoke of there being 30,000 in the crowd. She described the sickening sound of rounds of machine gun fire followed by a break as the shooter reloaded.
“In the moment, it felt like forever, but probably you would hear that around 30 times, of what just sounded like a machine gun, one after another, after another,” she said.
“We finally kind of heard a break and got up and just started running, hoping they were not going to hit us. We just started running and we were able to go into a back service door and just hide.
“That’s what we are doing now, hiding in a nearby hotel.”
Sheriff Lombardi said at least 50 were killed and more than 200 injured.
An off- duty firefighter at the concert said he “personally pronounced 20 dead”.
“With 30,000 in the arena ... it was like shooting goldfish in a bowl,” he said. “It’s a sad day for Las Vegas.”
A triage centre was set up at Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue as dozens were taken by ambulance to the nearby University Medical Centre for treatment.
Las Vegas is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the US, drawing 40 million visitors each year.