The Guardian Reports from the presser, with some titbits about the Sherif/FBI interactionâŚ
Las Vegas sheriff: gunman planned to survive and may have had help
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/04/las-vegas-gunman-stephen-paddock-survive-police
Sheriff Joe Lovato appears to have ambitionsâŚ
Lombardo had previously said law enforcement believed Paddock had perpetrated âa solo actâ. But on Wednesday, he appeared to change his position. His speculation about the possibility Paddock was aided came after an exchange in which he conceded investigators had not been able to identify any âperson of interestâ other than Danley.
He said investigators were, however, pressing to find others who may have been involved. It was possible that Paddock was âa super guyâ who was âworking out all of this on his ownâ, Lombardo said. But he added: âIt would be hard for me to believe that.â
The comment appeared to earn a veiled rebuke from the agent overseeing the FBIâs investigation.
âTheories are great and everyone can have a theory,â said Aaron Rouse, who runs the bureauâs Las Vegas division, and took to the lectern immediately after the sheriffâs comments. âBut I need to deal with facts. The sheriff needs to deal with facts.â He added: âHeâs not going to make assumptions. Iâm not going to make assumptions.â
I am waiting for Lovato to go full âFalse Flagâ soon, didnât some nut job sheriff do that at Sandy HookâŚ?
The problem is at the top.
Senior congressional Republicans said Wednesday they were open to considering legislation banning âbump stocksâ like Paddock used to convert semi-automatic rifles into fully automated weapons.
In related news, Congress plans to require the Titanic to have three additional life jackets.
I figured this would happen:
The Slide Fire website on Wednesday said the device was out of stock âdue to extreme high demands.
All of us have a lot of private thoughts going on in our minds. Luckily most of them either arenât this bad or donât make it into reality.
Some âtit-bits?â Sounds painful.
OK; I remove the hyphen, thanksâŚ
All those deaths make it all the more important to eliminate the âdeath tax.â
My instinct is that we are going to find out he was running out of money and this was how he choose to end it.
Here is a very handy timeline: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-shooting-timeline-stephen-paddock-mandalay-bay/
This appears to have been meticulously planned and Iâm not convinced he planned to escape. Maybe he did or maybe he just wanted that option.
Police got to the hall outside the room within 12 minutes of the first shot (remarkable!) which may have surprised Paddock and realizing he was surrounded, killed himself.
Even before the police arrived a security guard had gotten to the outside of the room and was shot and while wounded continued to assist police and guests escape, until the police directed him to seek medical attention. Thatâs a hero.
200 shots were fired in the hallway!
I think a lot of this will be solved. They have the record of the gun purchases and should be able to run down at least some of the ammo purchases.
Paddockâs financial health will soon be known to investigators, if itâs not already. Marilou probably knows more than sheâs willing to admit, but maybe they will get some more details from her.
My guess is the money was running out and he was going to be âexposedâ as not quite the expert gambler he held himself out to be. He suffered a break. Video poker.
I have my suspicions about this shooter. My guess is that given how many guns he had and how long he had planned for such an attack, that it fits the description that we often accord to a terrorist except that we donât know if there was a political motivation here. I would add that many such people who have that many guns often subscribe to right wing paranoia which is a manifestation of the political ideology of white nationalism. The NRA and the gun industryâs rhetoric are intended to market to such people based on an idea that liberty is at threat with thinly veiled references to a takeover of the country by POCs.
Given that he also seemed to have access to money, he may have also had big debts to pay as well, so there could be a personal angle to this. Another thing I would inquire is whether he was involved in the drug trade in any way.
Not according to this:
It took 72 minutes from the first 911 call for law enforcement to breach the shooterâs hotel room, NBC News reports.
Police received the first call reporting shots on the country music festival at 10:08 p.m. local time. They then began searching for the source of the shooting, which was eventually determined to be coming from the Mandalay Bay hotel. Police initially began searching for the shooter on the 29th floor, working their way up to the 32nd floor where authorities say they immediately realized they were in the right place. Itâs unclear how they knew, but at 11:20 p.m., police were heard blasting the door off the room where gunman Stephen Paddock was found dead, according to Las Vegas law enforcement.
Yes, according to that. Read more closely please.
I wrote,
Police got to the hall outside the room within 12 minutes of the first shot
I did not write that they entered the room. The shots stopped at about the time of the intial arrival outside the room. Itâs all explained in the link you shared as well as the link I shared.
The comments from lawmakers including the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, marked a surprising departure from GOP lawmakersâ general antipathy to any kind of gun regulations.
No doubt some NRA fat cash will soon cure them of those delusionsâŚ
None of that explains why he would target a country-music festival. If heâs a right-wing terrorist, why would he do that? The only people who hate country music that much are Martians.
It seems he targeted and scoped different events, including lollapalooza. He also had a priority to blow up the aircraft fuel tanks that are at the end of McCarren airport which are directly across the street from Mandalay. He chose the target based on the efficacy of committing acts of violence at the end of the day. Recall that the OKC federal building attack was in OKC, not exactly a bastion of liberalism. The US version of white nationalism also incorporates a hostility towards the federal govât and to society in general.
The shooterâs brothers have said they saw no evidence of odd behavior.
One brother, Patrick, said he hadnât seen the shooter in 20 years and that they were not communicating.
Eric Paddock called his 64-year-old multimillionaire brother a âprivate guy.â
âA private guy.â
Dysfunctional families, like this one with a father who was a bank robber on the FBIâs 10 Most Wanted list, frequently cannot recognize serious problems within their own family members or within themselves. Itâs their ânormalâ and it feels normal to them.
So family statements claiming the shooter appeared normal are worthless.
That is what will be interesting to watch. The NRA are very sophisticated in this game. After Sandy Hook, they laid low and wo$ked behind the scenes. They will here too.
Cornyn is the tell.
An enterprising young journalist should be watching to see how much money the NRA quietly raises off this tragedy.