Thousands of overturned chairs, boots, sunglasses, purses and hats still litter the Las Vegas concert grounds where America’s worst shooting massacre unfolded two days ago.
These haunting photos show just how much debris remains after the 22,000 country music fans were forced to flee the festival site when a gunman opened fire on Sunday night.
More than a dozen investigators, most wearing jackets marked ‘FBI’ and all in blue protective booties, arrived in unmarked sedans and entered the concert site Tuesday to pick through the scene for clues.
Debris litters the festival grounds across the street from the Mandalay Bay resort and casino where a gunman opened fire on concert-goers on Sunday night
Thousands of panicked country music fans fled the concert grounds on Sunday night when gunfire rang out. Two days later, the venue remains a scene of chaos (above)
The site inspection was visible by The Associated Press videographers from the 35th floor of the Mandalay Bay tower – three floors above the suite where Stephen Paddock launched his barrage and later killed himself.
He killed 59 people and injured 527 in the mass shooting.
Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who is a former U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps member, compared the abandoned festival site with that of a war zone.
‘Shoes, baby strollers, chairs, sunglasses, purses. The whole field was just littered with things,’ Laxalt said.
‘There were blood stains everywhere.’
More than a dozen investigators, most wearing jackets marked ‘FBI’ and all in blue protective booties, entered the concert site Tuesday to pick through the scene for clues
Cowboy boots and hats still litter the festival grounds as investigators picked their way through debris on Tuesday
Twenty-two thousand people were attending the festival when the gunman opened fire. Tables and barricades were thrown to the side as panicked revelers escaped
The bleachers and food vendors were quickly abandoned on Sunday night when gunfire rained down on festival-goers
These pictures of the abandoned site were taken by Associated Press videographers from the 35th floor of Mandalay Bay
Baby strollers and plastic wheelbarrows were discarded in the festival grounds. The same wheelbarrows were used by some paramedics to transport injured victims
Police found 23 rifles inside the Las Vegas shooter’s hotel room when they stormed in on Sunday night.
At least one of the guns that police found was automatic, while another two had been modified with legal bump-stock devices that allows semi-automatic guns to give full-auto fire of up to 800 rounds a minute. Several had scopes, and packed military-grade ammunition.
He took the guns into his Mandalay Bay suite over several days and set up two rifles on tripods at windows overlooking the music festival.
Thousands of rounds of ammunition were also found in the suite, enabling him to fire repeatedly over the course of 72 minutes. His car had several pounds of a fertilizer used in bomb-making.
As America mourns the victims of the worst gun massacre in recent US history, investigators are probing the motive behind the senseless attack.
Investigators were still locating dead bodies on Monday – the morning after the mass shooting unfolded
Investigators load bodies from the scene of the mass shooting into a funeral home van on Monday
Inside the nest: The smashed windows from the suite taken out by Paddock at the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas
People scramble over barriers to get to safety as the gunfire rages on at the Las Vegas event
Paramedics rushed a wounded person to safety in a plastic wheelbarrow on Sunday night
Stephen Paddock, 64, turned his luxury Las Vegas hotel suite into a sniper’s nest on Sunday by smashing open two windows on the hotel’s corner and setting up two guns on tripods before opening fire on the Route 91 Harvest music festival below