A gunman fired on the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas from an overlooking hotel. Police have named the suspect as Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old local man. They believe he shot and killed himself on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino. At least 59 people have been killed and at least 527 injured in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. The gunman behind Sunday night's mass shooting in Las Vegas planned to flee, and he may have had help with planning the massacre, officials suspect. Stephen Paddock was "living a secret life, much of which would never be fully understood", Sheriff Joe Lombardo told reporters.
The gunman's girlfriend said she had no idea what he was plotting. Paddock's motive for killing 58 people in the largest mass shooting in modern US history remains unclear.
Police found the 64-year-old former accountant dead in a room on the 32nd floor of a hotel after he sprayed bullets on concert-goers below, injuring hundreds. He apparently turned one of his many guns on himself as police closed in. Paddock had been gambling just hours before he began shooting. He had booked into an apartment at the high-rise Ogden in downtown Las Vegas a week earlier during a different open-air festival where acts including Muse, Lorde, Chance the Rapper and Blink-182 were due to play. A hotel security guard who led police to Paddock's room was shot, but continued to help until he was ordered to seek medical attention, according to BBC. The sheriff said more than 100 investigators had been combing through Paddock's life "to produce a profile of someone I would call disturbed and dangerous". Paddock, he said, was "a man who spent decades acquiring guns and ammo".
The gunman had around 23 weapons with him in the room, many of which were modified to make them shoot more quickly.
Police found explosives in his car at the hotel, along with about 1,600 rounds of ammunition.
The bulk of Paddock's weaponry was bought in the last year, but Sheriff Lombardo said it was not clear what motivated him to start buying so much equipment.
"Anything that would indicate this individual's trigger point and that would cause him to do such harm, we haven't understood it yet," he said. Paddock had set up cameras both inside and outside the suite to see anyone approaching the room, police said. Paddock's girlfriend -Marilou Danley, who was out of the country at the time of the shooting, has been described by US authorities as a "person of interest". She voluntarily flew back to Los Angeles from the Philippines on Tuesday night to speak to the FBI. Two weeks ago, she said Paddock surprised her with a plane ticket to visit her family in the South East Asian country.
Paddock "never said anything to me or took any action" which she understood as a warning of what was to come, she said in a statement read by her lawyer. Ms Danley added: "I loved him and hoped for a quiet future together." While she was in the Philippines, he wired her $100,000 (£75,400), saying it was to buy a house. "I was grateful, but honestly I was worried it was a way for him to break up with me," she said. "It never occurred to me in any way whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone." Her sister earlier told Australian outlet 7News that Ms Danley "was sent away... so that she will not be there to interfere with what he's planning". Paddock checked into a suite in the Mandalay Bay Hotel on 28 September, reportedly using some of Ms Danley's identity documents. I sympathise with the victims and their families in this Las Vegas shooting saga.
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