Police still can't figure out a motive for the Las Vegas shooting


Investigators still do not know why Stephen Paddock shot and killed 58 people during an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas last October, CBS News reports. In a press conference Friday, authorities conceded that three months of investigation had not yielded any findings on Paddock's motivations, though Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo did emphasize that Paddock acted alone and that his girlfriend — who was at one point suspected of helping him — would not be charged with any crime.
During the press conference, Lombardo also discussed a newly released 81-page report that examined Paddock's actions in the months leading up to the shooting, which was the deadliest in modern American history. The evidence indicated Paddock had been planning an attack for a while; investigators found he purchased over 50 firearms in the 12 months leading up to the shooting, and that he had studied the response strategies of various law enforcement departments.
Lombardo noted that "disturbing" internet searches Paddock had conducted indicated he may have considered carrying out the attack at other concerts or at beaches in California, CBS News reported. Investigators also found child pornography on Paddock's computer.
Read the full report at the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.
-
From Da Vinci to a golden toilet: a history of museum heists
In the Spotlight Following the ‘spectacular’ events at the Louvre, museums are ‘increasingly being targeted by criminal gangs’
-
Can Gen Z uprisings succeed where other protest movements failed?
Today's Big Question Apolitical and leaderless, youth-led protests have real power but are vulnerable to the strongman opportunist
-
The allegations of Christian genocide in Nigeria
The Explainer West African nation has denied claims from US senator and broadcaster
-
Arsonist who attacked Shapiro gets 25-50 years
Speed Read Cody Balmer broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion and tried to burn it down
-
Man charged over LA’s deadly Palisades Fire
speed read 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht has been arrested in connection with the fire that killed 12 people
-
4 dead in shooting, arson attack in Michigan church
Speed Read A gunman drove a pickup truck into a Mormon church where he shot at congregants and then set the building on fire
-
2 kids killed in shooting at Catholic school mass
Speed Read 17 others were wounded during a morning mass at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis
-
Australian woman found guilty of mushroom murders
speed read Erin Patterson murdered three of her ex-husband's relatives by serving them toxic death cap mushrooms
-
Combs convicted on 2 of 5 charges, denied bail
Speed Read Sean 'Diddy' Combs was acquitted of the more serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking
-
Sniper kills 2 Idaho firefighters in ambush
Speed Read A man started a wildfire, then fired a rifle at first responders when they arrived
-
Weinstein convicted of sex crime in retrial
Speed Read The New York jury delivered a mixed and partial verdict at the disgraced Hollywood producer's retrial