Search for motive
> Police recover firearms and explosives from Las Vegas gunman’s house
LAS VEGAS: Investigators were desperately trying to establish the motive of a retired accountant who killed at least 59 and wounded over 500 after amassing a weapons cache in a hotel room and opening fire on the Las Vegas strip.
As America grappled with the deadliest mass shooting in its history, officials reacted cautiously to an Islamic State (IS) claim that Stephen Craig Paddock ( pix), 64, had carried out Sunday night’s massacre on behalf of the jihadist group.
Police said Paddock, who had no criminal record, smashed windows in his 32nd floor hotel room shortly after 10pm on Sunday and trained bursts of automatic weapons fire on thousands attending a country music concert on the strip.
IS claimed that Paddock was one of its “soldiers” but the FBI said it had found no such connection so far.
“We have determined to this point no connection with an international terrorist group,” FBI special agent Aaron Rouse said.
Clark County, Nevada Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said Paddock fired through the door of his hotel room and hit a security guard in the leg.
But when a SWAT team stormed the room where Paddock had been staying since Sept 28, they found he had killed himself.
A total of 23 firearms including automatic weapons were found in the hotel room, he said.
A search of Paddock’s house in Mesquite, Nevada, 130km northeast of Las Vegas, recovered 19 additional firearms, some explosives and several thousand rounds of ammo.
Lombardo said investigators had discovered several pounds of an explosive called tannerite in the Mesquite home, as well as ammonium nitrate, a type of fertiliser, in the gunman’s car.
He said the latest death toll was 59, while 527 people had been injured.
The motive of the massacre is not yet known, he said.
“We’re hunting down and tracing down every single clue that we can get on his background,” the sheriff said.
Lombardo said the authorities had found no manifesto or anything else to explain Paddock’s actions.
“This individual is a lone wolf and I don’t know how it could have been prevented.
“I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath at this point.”
Paddock, according to his brother, was a high-stakes gambler and their bank-robber father was once on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list.
But Eric Paddock stressed that his brother led an otherwise normal life, doting on their mother.
“He liked to play video poker. He went on cruises. He sent his mother cookies.
“We’re trying to understand what happened. We’re lost.”
Paddock had “no religious affiliation, no political affiliation” and was “not an avid gun guy at all”, his brother added.
President Donald Trump denounced what he called “an act of pure evil” and said he would visit Las Vegas today.
But the White House pushed back at calls to reopen the US debate on tighter gun controls.
“A motive is yet to be determined and it would be premature for us to discuss policy when we don’t fully know all of the facts or what took place last night,” Trump spokesman Sarah Sanders said. – AFP