MASSACRE IN LAS VEGAS
Gunman Stephen Paddock a retired accountant with no known history of violence
58 PEOPLE were shot dead and more than 500 injured after a gunman opened fire at a Las Vegas country music festival on Sunday.
THE KILLER has been identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, who lived in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada. He shot himself before the cops arrived.
THE SHOOTING from a 32nd-floor window in the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of 22,000 people lasted several minutes.
THE DEATH toll is the largest in mass shooting in US history. The ISIS claimed responsibility for the massacre, which was rejected by the US officials.
THE DEATH toll eclipsed last year’s massacre of 49 people at an Orlando night club by a gunman who pledged allegiance to the ISIS.
Las Vegas, Oct. 2: Concert-goers at a Las Vegas country music festival thought the gunshots were fireworks, before they realised a gunman was aiming for the crows and ran for cover.
At least 58 people were killed and over 515 injured when a gunman opened fire from a 32nd floor hotel room on a country music concert in Las Vegas in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
Country singer Jason Aldean’s concert was nearing its end when the sound of gunfire rang around the arena. People reported seeing flashes from the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.
Kodiak Yazzi said he heard what sounded like fireworks while he was watching Aldean's performance. The 36-year-old said the music stopped temporarily and started up again before another round of pops sent the performers ducking for cover and fleeing the stage. As the 40,000 fans in the crowd began to flee, Yazzi took cover and said he saw flashes of light coming from the Mandalay Bay hotel tower high above. The bursts of pops would start and stop for more than five minutes.
A witness told KSNV-TV the gunman fired “clip after clip after clip”. “Bullets flying everywhere. Everybody running. It was really bad,” he said.
“It was hundreds of shots. It wasn’t ‘sounded like’. It was hundreds of shots,” he said.
Christine, a middle-aged woman who was attending the Route 91 Harvest festival with her husband, said: “The shots just kept coming. Everyone was literally lying on top of each other and trying to get out of the way.”
Professional poker player Dan Bilzerian filmed himself running from the festival. “Holy f***, this girl just got shot in the f***ing head. This is so f***ing crazy,” he says in the video while the sound of gunfire can be heard behind him.
Jake Freedman was at the nearby Delano Hotel’s 64th floor Skyfall bar. He describes seeing “people getting massacred right in front of us”.
SUSPECT PROFILE
The gunman, Stephen Craig Paddock, was a retired accountant who lived on a desert golf course in Mesquite Nevada, with no known history of violence — until he shot dead 50 people in a hail of gunfire from his Las Vegas hotel window.
Paddock’s family was in shock after the 64-year-old sowed terror on the Vegas strip in the worst mass shooting in US history.”
His brother, Eric Paddock, told CBS News his brother was “not an avid gun guy at all.” “Where the hell did he get automatic weapons? He has no military background or anything like that,” he said. “He drove down and gambled in Las Vegas. He did stuff. Eat burritos.” —
He brutally murdered more than 50 people and wounded hundreds more. It was an act of pure evil. Hundreds of our fellow citizens are now mourning the sudden loss of a loved one... We cannot fathom their pain.
— DONALD TRUMP, US President