Updated Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, 12:15 p.m. EDT: Police have confirmed that 58 people are dead and more than 515 are injured in what is being called the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Sixty-four-year-old Stephen Paddock, whom police have identified as the shooter, opened fire from two windows on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and into a crowd of more than 20,000 people who were on the ground for the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival in Las Vegas.
Paddock’s brother, Eric Paddock, gave at least one interview, saying that there is “exactly no reason for” the deadly shooting and that there are “no secrets in his [brother’s] past.”
“As they drill into his life, there will be nothing to be found,” Paddock said of the current investigation.
Updated Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, 9:15 a.m. EDT: Police say the suspect in Sunday’s mass shooting, Stephen Paddock, likely killed himself prior to police entering his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas. At least 10 long-range “fully automatic” rifles were found in Paddock’s room, and police estimate that the suspect’s weapons had a 1,700-foot range. There are now more than 400 people reported injured and taken to local hospitals.
Updated Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, 6:43 a.m. EDT: In what is confirmed to be the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, Las Vegas police are reporting that at least 50 people are dead and more than 200 are injured from the concert shooting. Police have named the suspect who was killed by police as Stephen Paddock, 64, claiming that he had multiple weapons on him.
Updated Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, 3:27 a.m. EDT: Las Vegas police have confirmed that one suspect is down. The investigation into the shooting is still active, and the department is asking that people avoid the Las Vegas Strip at this time.
Jim Cavanaugh, an NBC News and MSNBC analyst who is a retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent and former ATF hostage negotiator, told NBC News: “It’s clearly and absolutely submachine gun fire. It’s not semi-automatic weapon fire; it is submachine gun fire from a fully automatic rifle ... a machine gun that someone can carry.”
Cavanaugh said it sounds as if someone was emptying a 30-round magazine.
“It doesn’t mean necessarily that there’s two shooters,” Cavanaugh said.
Cavanaugh said it is believed the shots came from an elevated position.
Earlier:
A gunman or gunmen opened fire on the Las Vegas Strip late Sunday night during a country music festival near Mandalay Bay. Multiple people are reported to have been injured, and police are searching for the suspected shooter or shooters.
Twitter users began sharing live tweets and videos of concertgoers in panic at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival as the shooting began. There were multiple reports saying there were shooters at four different hotels on the Strip, including Mandalay Bay; New York, New York; Excalibur; and the Luxor.
Mandalay Bay, Luxor and Excalibur are all connected via a long corridor that runs through all three hotels. Excalibur sits on the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana. New York, New York is on the northwest corner. Luxor, then Mandalay Bay, are south of Excalibur on the same block.
Las Vegas police sent out a tweet asking that livestreams of their positions not be shared on social media. Las Vegas Boulevard was shut down from Tropicana to past Russell Road, heading toward McCarran International Airport.
Eyewitnesses said that bullets were coming from “somewhere high” and speculated that the shooters were firing from above the crowd.
Bryan Heifner was staying in a hotel across the street from Mandalay Bay. He told CNN that he could see the hotel from his window.
“Mostly I heard the shots, just so many shots—I just thought it was a semi braking with the air brakes, but then I went downstairs and saw people running and looking for family,” Heifner said. “I immediately went back to my room, locked the door, turned the lights off.”
ABC News reports that officials at University Medical Center in Las Vegas have confirmed that at least 20 people have been brought to the hospital with injuries, and that number is expected to go up. No information was given on the victims’ conditions.
This story is developing and will be updated as more details become available.