Carnage in Las Vegas
Over 50 dead, 400 wounded in concert shooting
LAS VEGAS – A gunman killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 400 when he opened fire on a country music concert in Las Vegas Sunday in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
Police initially said the gunman, a 64-year-old Nevada resident identified as Stephen Paddock, had been killed after a SWAT team responded to reports of multiple gunfire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay, a hotel-casino next to the concert venue.
Reports later yesterday, however, said Paddock, who was found with 10 guns in the hotel room, had killed himself.
Concert-goers screamed and fled in panic as a steady stream of automatic gunfire rang out at the venue shortly after 10 p.m. local time, foot- age captured on smart phones showed.
“We are looking at in excess of 50 individuals dead and of 200 individuals injured at this point,” Las Vegas Metro Police Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told a pre-dawn press conference yesterday in the Nevada gambling hub. The number of wounded later rose to 400.
Lombardo said that police and FBI were still looking into Paddock’s background.
Police said Paddock, who lived in a town around 130 kilometers northeast of Las
Vegas, had opened fire on the crowds below from the upper reaches of the giant hotel located on the famous Las Vegas Strip.
Paddock’s female companion, Marilou Danley, person of interest by police, was located and cleared of involvement, Lombardo added.
Thousands of fans were attending the concert next to the Mandalay Bay as part of a threeday country music festival known as Route 91.
Donald Trump was briefed on the “horrific tragedy,” the White House said, and the US president took to Twitter to offer his “warmest condolences and sympathies” to victims and families.
‘Like firecrackers’
Witnesses told how Paddock opened fire with an initial long burst, and then appeared to reload as he continued his spree.
“We heard (what) sounded like a glass breaking, so you looked around to see what’s going on and then heard a pop, pop, pop,” Monique Dekerf told CNN.
“You’d think for a moment OK we’re fine, there’s no more gunfire, then it starts again.”
Her sister Rachel said it sounded like “the shots were coming from the right side ... it sounded like they were right beside us too ... it was right there.”
Best-selling country singer Jason Aldean was on stage and near the end of his concert when the shooting began.
Aldean initially carried on playing when the first crackle of gunfire could be heard but then hurried off the stage once he realized that it was a shooting.
Robert Hayes, a firefighter from Los Angeles who was watching the concert near the front of the stage, said he first thought the gunfire was some kind of equipment malfunction.
Once he realized what was going on, he joined the first responders, donning one of their vests.
“Honestly I probably pronounced 15-20 people” dead, he told Fox News. “It was pretty much like a war scene inside.”
The emergency crews used anything at hand as makeshift stretchers, including tables and metal railings normally used to control the crowds, Hayes said.
Asked if he thought it was an inexperienced gunman, he responded: ‘With 30,000 people in the arena area, it was kind of like shooting goldfish ... He didn’t have to be good.”
Although the final toll has yet to be confirmed, it is already the deadliest shooting in the United States.
The previous deadliest shooting came in June 2016 when 49 people were killed at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
It was also the latest in a series of recent deadly attacks at concert venues.
Trump calls attack ‘pure evil’
President Donald Trump yesterday condemned the mass shooting as an ``act of pure evil’’ and said the nation was “joined together in sadness, shock and grief”’ after more than 50 people were gunned down in Las Vegas.
Speaking slowly and somberly from the White House, Trump declared that the nation would rally together in the face of the latest act of senseless violence.
“Our unity cannot be shattered by evil, our bonds cannot be broken by violence,” the president said. “It is our love that defines us today.”
Trump praised the first responders who he said prevented further losses of life and said he would visit Las Vegas on Wednesday. He offered condolences to the families of those killed, saying, “We cannot fathom their pain. We cannot imagine their loss.”
“We are praying for you,”’ he said. “We are here for you.”
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