‘AN ACT OF PURE EVIL’
58 INNOCENTS SHOT DEAD AND 515 INJURED IN LAS VEGAS MASSACRE
Country music fans scramble for cover while others crouch with fear clearly etched on their faces after a gunman opened fire at the festival
A GUNMAN killed 58 people in “an act of pure evil” yesterday when he opened fire on the Las Vegas strip in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retired accountant, fired hundreds of rounds on an open-air music festival from the 32nd floor of a hotel, injuring more than 500 spectators.
He sprayed the crowd with his automatic weapon for several minutes, causing an estimated 22,000 people to dive for cover.
Horrific video footage revealed the dead and the dying covered in blood. Some people plugged bullet wounds with their fingers during the carnage.
The wounded were rushed to safety on office chairs and in wheelbarrows and were loaded into trucks and cars.
Witnesses described seeing muzzle flashes from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and hearing sustained automatic gunfire during the sickening bloodbath.
The Mandalay Bay sits across the Las Vegas strip from the Route 91 Harvest country music festival site.
Paddock began blasting away as people watched the final performances. Witness Russell Bleck said: “While everyone else was crouching I saw police officers standing up as targets, just trying to direct people and tell them where to go.
“The amount of bravery I saw there, words can’t describe what it was like.
“He was just spraying the crowd, it was relentless, there was no stopping, maybe five or eight seconds to move from cover to cover to try to get out as he reloaded.”
The death toll surpasses the Orlando shooting at the Pulse nightclub in June 2016, when 49 people were killed.
Sonny Melton, a registered nurse from Paris, Tennessee, died as he protected his wife. He was the first victim to be identified.
His wife Heather said: “At this point, I’m in complete disbelief and despair. I don’t know what to say. He saved my life and lost his.”
Eyewitness Jackie Hoffing said: “It was very obvious it was gunfire coming down into the crowd.
“It was hysteria. There were people trampled.
“I was with my husband. He stayed with me.
“We jumped walls, climbed cars, ran for our lives. I’ve never run that hard or been that scared in my whole life.”
Desiree Price, who was visiting from San Diego, said: “We heard shots like firecrackers. I helped someone who was bleeding. Two girls hid behind a car with us right outside the concert. One girl was shot in her leg, the other in her shoulder. It didn’t stop so we all ran – we kept going.” Paddock, who is believed to be a grandfather, booked into the hotel on September 28. He may have booked a large room or connecting rooms, and fired out of two windows.
He shot himself dead seconds before police burst into his hotel room, where they recovered more than 10 rifles.
They were alerted to his precise location because the gunfire had triggered a fire alarm. Paddock lived in a modest property in a remote desert retirement village in Mesquite, Nevada.
He reportedly came to Vegas often to gamble.
His motive is unknown, but police believe he acted alone. He was apparently going through a divorce.
Police said the killer is “not believed to be connected to any militant group” despite a claim of responsibility from Islamic State. A police spokesman added: “We have no idea what his belief system was.”
IS claimed the attack was carried out by a “soldier” who had “converted to Islam several months ago”.
But the CIA later said it did not believe this to be true. Paddock had no history of violence but had a hunting licence for Alaska.
It has been claimed his father Benjamin was a serial bank robber who was “diagnosed as psychopathic” and spent eight years on the FBI’s most-wanted list after escaping from prison.
His brother Eric, 55, who lives in Orlando, Florida, said he was “dumbfounded”.
He added: “He’s not an avid gun guy at all. He has no military back-