FBI searches Vegas gunman's house again
LAS VEGAS — Federal investigators returned to search the home of Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock on Sunday, while the officers who raided his hotel room door the night of the shooting gave a harrowing account of a barricaded door they had to bust through and the boobytraps they feared they'd find.
The search of Paddock's three-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada, was for "re-documenting and rechecking," said local police Chief Troy Tanner, who accompanied FBI agents as they served the search warrant.
"I don't think they are after anything specific," Tanner told The Associated Press. "They're going through everything and photographing everything again."
The home was first searched Monday by Las Vegas police, who said they found 19 guns and several pounds of potentially explosive materials at the house that Paddock bought in early 2015.
The search came exactly a week after Paddock opened fire on a country music crowd, killing 58 and injuring nearly 500.
Meanwhile, the makeshift SWAT team of police officers who made it to Paddock's door at the Mandalay Bay hotel casino 12 minutes after the first shots were fired described how they got there and the "gun store" they found inside in an appearance on the CBS television program "60 Minutes" on Sunday night.
One of them said he hurried from police headquarters to the Mandalay Bay in cowboy boots and ditched them before ascending to the 32nd floor in search of the gunman.
"I just threw them in the casino," Detective Matthew Donaldson said. "That was slowing' me down. I was faster barefoot, and I was gonna be more effective barefoot."
The officers said they heard reports of gunmen on both the 29th and 32nd floor, so "we're thinking multiple shooters at this point," Sgt. Joshua Bitsko said.
They zeroed in on the 32nd floor after Paddock unleashed about 200 rounds at a security guard outside his door.
When they got to the stairwell door on that floor near Paddock's room, they found he had taken special measures to slow them down.
"He had screwed shut the door — with a piece of metal and some screws," Bitsko said. "Cause he knew we'd be coming out that door to gain entry into his door. So he tried to barricade it as best he could."
But another officer had a pry bar and was able to easily pop it open, Bitsko said.
Authorities would later reveal that Paddock had surveillance cameras rigged inside and outside his room. But the officers didn't know that at the time.