According to a fellow gambler whose interview with the FBI is detailed in hundreds of pages of documents made public this week, the high-stakes gambler who opened fire on a concert crowd on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017, killing 60 people and injuring hundreds more was angry over how the casinos were treating him despite his high-roller status.
The information surfaced years after the FBI in Las Vegas and the local police department declared their probes to be closed without a clear motive, even though both organizations claimed shooter Stephen Paddock spent more than $1.5 million, developed a gun obsession and cut off communication with his girlfriend and family in the months before the atrocity.
Las Vegas police issued a statement on Thursday defending their tentative conclusions and downplayed the significance of the information made public this week in response to a Wall Street Journal open records request.
According to the statement, “we were unable to ascertain a motivation for the shooter.” “Conjecture about a motivation does greater harm to the hundreds of victims that night.”
The FBI was informed by the anonymous fellow gambler, whose name has been blacked in the updated materials, that casinos have previously given high rollers like Paddock free cruises, flights, penthouse suites, rides in “beautiful cars,” and wine country excursions.
The gambler claimed that casinos even started barring some high rollers “for playing well and winning huge amounts of money” in the years before the mass shooting in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017, and that Paddock himself had been blacklisted from three Nevada casinos.
The gambler admitted to the FBI that he thought Paddock’s “to snap” was likely due to stress.
Kelly McMahill, a former official with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, led the criminal investigation into the massacre. She said there was no solid evidence that Paddock’s actions were motivated by hate toward the casino sector.
According to McMahill, “LVMPD has no method of hiding any possible reason from our victims and survivors for five years.”
The three-day Route 91 Harvest Music Festival’s last night saw a 10-minute slaughter across the street from the Mandalay Bay resort.
According to the authorities, 64-year-old Paddock opened fire on the 22,000 people in the crowd from his corner room on the hotel’s 32nd story.
His propensity for gambling made him a popular casino goer. The staff at Mandalay Bay provided him with a complimentary room worth $590 a night with a spectacular view of the Strip and the music festival and allowed him to use the service elevator to carry up his numerous suitcases.
His weapons for the battle were concealed within the luggage.
The rapid-fire “bump stocks” attachments, which effectively turn semi-automatic rifles into fully automated weapons, were added to 12 Paddock’s weapons.
Several of them had scopes and bipod bracing. His guns, according to the authorities, were legally bought.
But Paddock also looked at other significant venues before establishing his post in the Mandalay Bay.
He reserved lodgings with views of the 2017 Life is Beautiful event in downtown Las Vegas and the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago in August.
The former Las Vegas police official, McMahill, stated that it is clear from Paddock’s internet search history that he was looking for a sizable crowd of people, which he found.
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