Clark County, Nevada Sheriff Joe Lombardo released a preliminary report on the Las Vegas shooting on Friday. Gunman Stephen Paddock, who was killed after the attack, pictured above
Investigators have still not discovered what motivated Stephen Paddock to embark on the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history but determined that he researched SWAT tactics ahead of the massacre and investigated other possible targets, including the famed California beach in Santa Monica, officials said Friday.
They also determined that Paddock acted alone when he opened fire from his high-rise hotel suite, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told reporters.
Lombardo made public a preliminary report into the shooting and said he does not expect charges to be filed against Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, who had been previously called a person of interest in the case. Investigators also found that Paddock had possessed child pornography, Lombardo said.
Paddock’s online searches before the shooting included research into SWAT tactics and for other potential public venue targets – and he took photographs of some potential sites, the sheriff said. The searches also included the number of attendees at other concerts in Las Vegas and how many people go to Santa Monica’s beach.
During the Friday press conference, Lombardo also revealed that police are investigating a person of interest, who is not Danley. Lombardo reiterated, however, that they believe Paddock was a lone shooter.
Paddock’s vantage point from the Mandalay Bay, where he carried out the attack, is seen above. He targeted concertogers at the Route 91 music festival across the street
The report included never-before-seen pictures from inside the gunman’s suite, which he used to fire down on innocent concertgoers. The photo above includes a picture of the smaller connecting room that Paddock used as a second shooting vantage point
The above picture shows Paddock’s minivan, which investigators initially said he planned to use to escape
Several packages of tannerite, an explosive, were found inside Paddock’s car
According to the report, investigators found 20 two-pound containers of exploding targets, 10 one-pound containers of exploding targets, two 20-pound bags of explosive precursors, a loaded magazine for an AR-10 rifle, a loaded magazine for an AR-15 magazine, boxed ammunition, suitcases and towels inside Paddock’s 2017 Chrysler Pacifica
Mandalay Bay security were first drawn to Paddock’s hotel room when they noticed a stairwell door that had been screwed shut (above). A security officer responded to the floor and heard gunshots
Paddock set up a camera on a room service cart outside of his room so he could know when officers were arriving outside his door (straight ahead and on the right)
Above, a view of the covert camera that Paddock his underneath a plate on the food service cart left outside his room
Paddock also set up a second camera in the peephole of the hotel room door, as a second vantage into the hallway
When officers first arrived at the scene, Paddock tried shooting at them through the door to his suite
Paddock used a computer to livestream the feeds from the cameras so he could watch the hallway from inside his suite
By the time they burst into the suite, Paddock had already shot himself dead. Above, a view of the entrance to the larger suite
Investigators also included this graphic showing the layout of Paddock’s two connecting rooms. Room 32135 was the larger suite, and room 32134 was the smaller one. He shot out of windows on the northeast side of the larger room and on the east side of the smaller room
The sheriff and the FBI have said they found no link to international terrorism. They said they believe Paddock meticulously prepared and concealed his plan to fire assault-style weapons from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of 22,000 people attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival music below.
Paddock fired more than 1,100 bullets, mostly from two windows in the high-rise hotel, Lombardo has said. That includes about 200 shots fired through Paddock’s hotel room door into a hallway where an unarmed hotel security guard was wounded in the leg and a maintenance engineer took cover to avoid being hit.
Several bullets hit aviation fuel storage tanks at nearby McCarran International Airport that did not explode. Authorities reported finding about 4,000 unused bullets in Paddock’s two-room suite, including incendiary rounds that Lombardo said were not used.
The Mandalay Bay hotel is seen in the top left of this picture, released in the report on Friday
Investigators recovered 23 guns in Paddock’s suite. Some of the rifles are seen above
Twelve of the rifles had been fitted with ‘bump stock’ devices to make them fire faster, similar to a fully automatic weapon
Paddock fired more than 1,100 bullets, mostly from two windows in the high-rise hotel. Above, some of the bullets on the floor, near the window where he shot from
Paddock smuggled a huge array of tools into his hotel room to prepare for the horrific attack
This is the chilling notes Paddock wrote as he calculated the distance to the concertgoers across the street, so he could use the right weapon to target them
Paddock booked two rooms at the Mandalay Bay that connected through the door above. He shot out of two windows, one in the larger room and one in the small room
Pictured above is Paddock’s smaller room, and some of the guns found inside
Several bullets hit aviation fuel storage tanks at nearby McCarran International Airport that did not explode
Above, a bullet hole that truck one of the fuel tanks at McCarren
Another item found in Paddock’s room and taken as evidence was a blue snorkel mouthpiece attached to some piping. The report doesn’t say what the believe this was for
Investigators found 23 guns in the rooms, including 12 rifles that a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms official said were fitted with ‘bump stock’ devices that allowed rapid-fire shooting similar to fully automatic operation.
Paddock killed himself with a gunshot to the mouth before police reached him. The 64-year-old retired accountant and multimillionaire real estate investor had earned hotel upgrades as a high-stakes video poker gambler at several Las Vegas casino resorts.
Danley was in the Philippines at the time of the shooting.
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo discusses the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting during a news conference on Friday
The report says that Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, will likely not face charges. She had previously been called a person of interest in the case
Lombardo and Aaron Rouse, FBI agent in charge in Las Vegas, had described Danley as a person of interest in the investigation but not a suspect. She was questioned by the FBI when she arrived in Los Angeles from overseas, and was described as cooperating with investigators.
However, a document filed October 6 and unsealed last Friday by a federal judge in Las Vegas said the FBI considered Danley ‘the most likely person who aided or abetted Stephen Paddock.’
Questions have been raised about Danley’s receipt in the Philippines of a $10,000 wire transfer from Paddock just days before the shooting.
FBI warrant documents also showed that Danley told investigators that they would find her fingerprints on bullets used during the attack because she would sometimes help Paddock load high-volume ammunition magazines, and that Danley deleted her Facebook account in the hours immediately following the shooting.
The Clark County coroner ruled that all 58 people killed in the attack died of gunshot wounds. Paddock’s death was ruled a suicide. Media organizations including The Associated Press are seeking autopsy records that have not been made public.