That’s from the AP.
I agree, which is why my comment included the line about “a rookie cop firing an AR into the side of the Mandalay Bay from hundreds of yards away may not exactly be a recipe for success”. It was a tricky situation, and you don’t want to be the guy that makes it worse by shooting up a suite full of young folks because you mistook their disco ball for muzzle flashes, or something like that. I was originally responding to aceplace57’s comment that “There’s no defense against a sniper in a high building or tower. Police (on the ground) with hand guns are ineffective.” That’s not generally accurate. Police these days often have weapons more-than-capable of reaching out and touching someone in a high building or tower. The particulars of this situation (nighttime with lots of light pollution, a very confusing situation without a clear target, etc) made target identification a real challenge.
BTW, just a tip in the unfortunate case that you might find yourself in a similar situation some day: RUN! And don’t stop running!
Watching the videos, a lot of the crowd would duck every time the guy would let loose with another string of shots. Unless you know which direction the gunfire is coming from and you’re ducking to get some solid cover between you and the shooter, you’re not really making yourself appreciable smaller, and by dropping to the ground every few seconds and running only while he’s reloading you’re extending the time you are remaining in the bad guy’s target zone. Just keep running until you are well away from the situation and minimize your time in the target area. At least, that’s my take.
Here is audio from when the police breached the suspect’s room. It seems pretty obvious from the conversation that he had ceased firing some time prior to that (“We need to pop this and see if we get any type of response from this guy, to see if he’s in here or if he’s actually moved somewhere else.”).
And here is the radio traffic from the LVMPD during the incident.
If this guy had amassed 30 odd weapons, and converted AR-15’s to full-auto, this was not a guy who just ‘snapped’ because he lost big at the tables or something. It’s something that was planned. Just getting those weapons into the room would take some planning. Sure, you might buy a gun in Vegas and bring it back to your room, but you’d think after you carried the 10th armload of weapons through the front door someone might start asking questions. At least, you’d have to plan for that.
It will be interesting to see what the security footage shows. Vegas Casinos have recording cameras on every square foot of the property, and they keep the video for some time.
His girlfriend worked at Mandalay Bay. It will be interesting to see if he used her access to get the weapons in through a service entrance or something.
Another strangeness - his brother said he wasn’t a ‘gun nut’. He had a small safe with two handguns in it, and nothing else according to the brother. He also said he didn’t have a temper, had no obvious axes to grind, and was just a normal guy enjoying his retirement.
None of this fits the profile of a mass murderer. Nor does it fit the profile of someone who could be converted to Islam and turned into a terrorist. He wasn’t angry, disaffected, spurned, passed over for promotion or anything else we know of that might turn a hot-head into a spree shooter.
I suspect we still have a lot to learn about this guy, his motivations and his activities. I doubt it had anything at all to do with ISIS or anything else ideological. Maybe he had early onset Alzheimers or had a mental break and became paranoid or something.
There’s also the weird matter of the strange people yelling “You’re all going to die tonight!” and being escorted off the property by police before the shooting started. I haven’t heard anything that contradicts that report yet. But then again, it’s Vegas, and there were 22,000 people there - a couple of crazy doomsayers could just be coincidence, and probably was.
I see reports of a 72 minute rampage. Are there no snipers trained to take out guys like this? I realise it could be controversial to have police trained for this in today’s policing environment.
I don’t think those reports of a 72 minute rampage are accurate.
A shot like this (~400-500 yards) would be of no particular difficulty for a trained sniper, but, as we’ve discussed, identifying the source of the gunfire is the hard part. Once that’s done, shooting him to stop him is relatively straightforward.
It wasn’t 72 minutes, but whatever. Where would the sniper have to position themself to reliably take out someone who was on the 32nd floor, at night, with reflective windows all around, in a generally lit up environment and lots of lights flashing?
There is no way he shot for 72 minutes. It would have taken no more than 10-15 minutes for police to locate the shooter, send SWAT into the hotel and go right to his door. Which is what they did.
Just looked it up. CNN is reporting that witnesses said the shooting lasted for 10-15 minutes. That’s probably still a bit high, but a much more likely number.
Why would one guy take 10+ weapons in the room to do such a thing? Why not take 1 weapon and a shitload of loaded magazines?*
*Obviously this is a terrible tragedy and I don’t mean to demean the loss by analyzing such a thing, but it was what I thought of.
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I believe the reports are that the guy owned a total of ~30 guns. He didn’t take them all with him to the Mandalay Bay. Initial reports were that he had around a dozen rifles in the room.
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As for "after you carried the 10th armload of weapons through the front door someone might start asking questions… " he probably wasn’t carrying exposed rifles in his arms or hands. He almost certainly put them in some sort of carrying case. Some of those are somewhat noticeable, but a lot of them are rather inconspicuous, especially at a place, like a hotel, where people are coming and going all day long every day with luggage of various shapes and sizes. Something like this or this could easily be mistaken for just someone’s garment bag or suitcase without closer examination.
If he had those weapons in bags then no one (including security) would have noticed him getting them into his hotel room. Vegas hotels are crowded (hard to explain unless you’ve been there, especially on a crowded date like this weekend was supposed to have been). And because of the way the hotels and casinos are designed, where the buildings are interconnected, people are always walking though the lobbies and casino floors. Someone bringing in bags through the lobby into his hotel room would simply not solicit any suspicion.
Weapons jam sometimes, more often at sustained high rates of fire, and it might be faster to have a backup rifle rather than spending time trying to clear the jam. I’ve heard quite a few preppers / gun owners repeat the saying “two is one, and one is none” as a way of emphasizing the need for backups / redundancy because equipment fails sometimes. Ten seems like overkill though.
Because if the weapon was a “badly-converted to full auto” rifle it would probably jam. Multiple weapons keeps you firing.
Latest reports indicate that housekeeping saw nothing unusual in the room. Yet he had a tripod, multiple weapons, a buttload of ammo, etc. This was a very well-planned attack.
There is absolutely zero chance a police counter-sniper could have done anything at all, even if they got one on site 30 seconds after the shooting started. Goodly distance, uphill, screaming crowd, light pollution, reflective glass, multiple Good Guys in the immediate area of the shooter, zero cover, etc.
Yeah, I don’t think that’s an easy shot. He was also moving back and forth between two windows. Also, from the angle someone on the ground would be shooting, any bullets that missed the guy would be going through the ceiling into the rooms above. A sniper rifle is not going to be a small calibre. Most likely a .308, as the Remington 700 is a common police sniper rifle. The bullet would probably be fully-jacketed, and could go through a lot of walls if it misses - or even if it hits the guy. There’s also the matter of wind and turbulence around the hotel, which could complicate matters even more.
I suspect a sniper was completely out of the question - especially since it was much easier to just run to the where the guy was, break down the door and shoot him.
Barrels also overheat - especially in weapons not designed for full auto.
I would think redundancy for issues like weapon jams and overheating.
CNN just reported he had 18 guns of some sort Back at his house as well as explosives. Without them saying exactly what they are talking about it’s impossible to know what they mean by explosives. A couple of packages of tannerite for target shooting? Homemade pipe bombs? 100 pounds of C4? Firecrackers?
Las Vegas sheriff reporting ammonium nitrate was found in the suspect’s car. They also seized computers from his house, I suspect in a few days we’ll learn that he had some sort of association with some unpleasant internet groups and that his brother in Florida really didnt know him at all.