The Las Vegas shooter used cameras, bump stocks, and careful planning in his 72-minute reign of terror
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police dispatchers got their first call about shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival at 10:08 p.m. on Sunday night and the gunman, Stephen Paddock, had stopped firing by 10:19, after shooting more than 500 people from his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, Clark County Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said Tuesday evening. Paddock fired more than 12 volleys over nine to 11 minutes, killing at least 59 people, including one who died in the hospital Tuesday afternoon. He had used three cameras hidden in the hallway and peephole to watch for approaching police, and he shot a Mandalay Bay security guard in the leg through the door.
Police found 23 firearms in Paddock's Mandalay Bay "sniper's nest," as Reuters puts it, plus 12 bump stocks, which allow a semiautomatic weapon — like the AR-15-type rifles Paddock used — to fire like fully automatic rifles. They are legal. Police also found another 24 guns and explosives at Paddock's homes in Reno and Mesquite, Nevada.
It took 72 minutes from the first shot until the SWAT team blew down Paddock's hotel door, finding him recently dead of what's believed to be a self-inflicted gun wound. "Although 72 minutes sounds like an eternity during an active shooting, officials and experts on Tuesday insisted that the delay before entering the gunman's hotel room did not suggest a slow response," the Los Angeles Times notes in its rundown of the shooting. Las Vegas police were outside the room by 10:23, though they decided not to force entry since the shooting had stopped.
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You can see police body-cam footage at the end of McMahill's full press briefing and learn more about what happened at the Los Angeles Times.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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