58 killed at Las Vegas concert
ISIS CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR DEADLIEST EVER US SHOOTING
LAS VEGAS: Some 58 people died and more than 400 were hurt when a 64-yearold gunman with an arsenal of at least 10 rifles fired on a Las Vegas country music festival on Sunday, raining down bullets from a 32nd-floor window for several minutes before killing himself. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the shooting and said the attacker had converted to Islam a few months ago.
“The Las Vegas attack was carried out by a soldier of the Islamic State and he carried it out in response to calls to target states of the coalition,” the terrorist group’s news agency Amaq said in reference to the Us-led coalition fighting the group in the Middle East. “The Las Vegas attacker converted to Islam a few months ago,” Amaq added.
The death toll, which police emphasized was preliminary, would make the mass shooting the deadliest in U.S. history, eclipsing last year’s massacre of 49 people at an Orlando nightclub by a gunman who pledged allegiance to Islamic State militants.
Some 22,000 people were in the crowd when a man police identified as Stephen Paddock opened fire, sparking a panic in which some people trampled on others, as law enforcement officers scrambled to locate the gunman.
Shocked concertgoers, some with blood-soaked clothes, wandered the streets afterwards.
Police said they had no information about Paddock’s motive, that he had no criminal record and was not believed to be connected to any militant group. Paddock killed himself before police entered the hotel room he was firing from, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters.
“We have no idea what his belief system was,” Lombardo said.
A senior U.S. government official said that Paddock’s name was not on any database of suspected terrorists.
Lombardo said there were more than 10 rifles in the room where Paddock killed himself after checking into the hotel on Thursday.
The dead included one off-duty police officer, Lombardo said. Two onduty officers were injured, including one who was in stable condition after surgery and one who sustained minor injuries, Lombardo said. Police warned the death toll may rise.
As sunrise approached, police were still finding people who had taken cover during the attack, Lombardo said.
“It’s going to take time for us to get through the evacuation phase,” Lombardo said.
Las Vegas’s casinos, nightclubs and shopping draw some 3.5 million visitors from around the world each year and the area was packed with visitors when the shooting broke out shortly after 10 p.m. local time (0400 GMT).
Shares of U.S. casino operators fell in early trading on Wall Street, with MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay, down 4 percent.
The shooting broke out on the final night of the three-day Route 91 Harvest festival, a sold-out event featuring top acts such as Eric Church, Sam Hunt and Jason Aldean.
“Tonight has been beyond horrific,” Aldean said in a statement on Instagram. “It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone.”
The suspected shooter’s brother, Eric Paddock, said the family was stunned.
“We have no idea. We’re horrified. We’re bewildered and our condolences go out to the victims,” Eric Paddock said in a brief telephone interview, his voice trembling. “We have no idea in the world.”
U.S. President Donald Trump offered his condolences to the victims via a post on Twitter.
As with previous U.S. mass shootings, the incident sparked anger among advocates for gun control. The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to bear arms, and gunrights advocates staunchly defend that provision.
The rampage was reminiscent of a mass shooting at a Paris rock concert in November 2015 that killed 89 people, part of a wave of coordinated attacks by Islamist militants that left 130 dead.
LAS VEGAS: A woman and her partner were escorted out of the music venue after she told people they were “all going to die”, a witness claims.
A woman in the crowd at the Las Vegas music festival may have given a chilling warning to revellers about the massacre 45 minutes before it took place.
According to a witness identified as Brianna, the woman and her boyfriend had been escorted out of the venue after she pushed her way to the front row and told people they were “all going to die”.
The witness said: “I thought it had a positive correlation to it (the shooting).
“Obviously she was telling us that, either to tell us to warn us, or to tell us that we were all going to die, and she was part of it.”
More than 58 people were killed and over 515 hurt after a gunman in a hotel opposite sprayed bullets on the crowd below.
Police have not confirmed if they believe the incident was related to the deadly shooting.
The witness, who went to the festival for her 21st birthday, told Las Vegas station
KSNV of the escorted woman: “She had been messing with the lady in front of her, telling her she was going to die, that we’re all going to die.
“They escorted her out to make her stop messing around with all the other people in front of them. But none of us knew it was going to be serious.”
The witness described the couple as Hispanic, looking like “everyday people” and around 5ft 5in to 5ft 6in tall.
The shooting began at 10.08pm on Sunday night (4.08pm Monday AEST). The suspect, a local man named as 64 year-old Stephen Paddock was killed by police. His girlfriend has been identified as Australian woman Marilou Danley.
Donald Trump has offered his “warmest condolences” via Twitter in response to the shooting, while Malcolm Turnbull said “Australia mourns with America”.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain’s thoughts were with the victims of what she called an “appalling attack”.
Marilou Danley, the woman wanted by police in connection with the Las Vegas shooting is Australian.
The Australian understands that she was the girlfriend of the dead shooter Stephen Paddock. Danley is understood to have shared a house in Las Vegas with Paddock.
She holds an Australian passport and is possibly of Indonesian decent.
Las Vegas Police said in the last half an hour that they have located Danley after earlier issuing her photo and naming her as a person of interest following the shooting.
Country music artists who performed at the Route 91 festival have expressed their support for those caught up in the shooting.
The performer who was on stage when the shooting started, Jason Aldean, uploaded an aerial photo of Las Vegas on Instagram with the caption: “Tonight has been beyond horrific. I still don’t know what to say but wanted to let everyone know that Me and my Crew are safe. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night.”
Singer songwriter Jake Owen was a Route 91 headline act who played the set immediately before Aldean.
During the shooting, he tweeted: “Gun shots!!! Vegas. Pray to god. Love you guys. Love you Pearl.”
Witnesses said ‘hundreds’ of rounds of ammunition were emptied into the crowd, with Paddock stopping several times to reload as he carried out his massacre.
Among those shot dead at the concert was an off-duty Las Vegas Metro Police officer. Attendees said a large number of law enforcement and military personnel had been attending the show.
Two on-duty Las Vegas police officers who engaged the shooter have been hospitalized. One of the officers was critically injured, but is now in stable condition after undergoing surgery.
The other officer suffered minor injuries.
Neither have been identified. Two officers with the Las Angeles Sheriff ’s Department deputies were also injured in the shooting. One is in critical condition and the other is in stable condition. Their names have not been released either.
All of the ambulances in the area were been deployed to the location, and victims taken to two hospitals.