America is grieving. The worst mass shooting in our history unfolded Sunday night at a Las Vegas concert. 50 innocent people are dead, and over 400 are injured. The massacre was orchestrated by Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old monster with a criminal past.
Paddock was known to law enforcement before his attack began. Armed with nearly a dozen weapons, the deranged gunman sprayed a hail of bullets from a window on the 32 floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. He killed himself before police found him
“We are completely dumbfounded,” Paddock’s brother said. “We can’t understand what happened.”
https://youtu.be/B7ixInjs0C4
The horrific event shut down the normally bustling Las Vegas strip.
“We went into the hotel and they started shutting down casinos,” Todd Price, a guest of Mandalay Bay, told CNN. “We tried to get into our rooms, and they shut down the elevators and started to get everybody out.”
Paddock’s history is largely a mystery. Reporters are scrambling for answers but few have been found. Authorities don’t believe the incident was related terrorism, but they also don’t know what else his motivation could have been.
Harrowing video of mass shooting during @Jason_Aldean set of #Route91Harvest Festival in #LasVegas. #MandalayBay https://t.co/gaXgDBbZKV
— Evan Schreiber (@SchreiberEvan) October 2, 2017
Jake Owen, a country singer who was performing on stage with Jason Aldean when the attack broke out, told reporters that it was like “shooting fish in a barrel from where he was… This is not an exaggeration: This shooting was going on for at least 10 minutes… It was nonstop.”
The terrible shooting disrupted the city. President Trump announced Monday morning that he would be headed to Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet with local officials.
“Everyone was running, you could see people getting shot,” one of the witnesses described. “I’ve never been that scared in my life… To have this happen, I can’t wrap my mind around it.”
My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2017
(Source: New York Times)