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Las Vegas police look for motive in deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history

By Alexandria Sage and Lisa Girion

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Police sought clues on Tuesday to explain why a retiree who enjoyed gambling but had no criminal record set up a vantage point in a high-rise Las Vegas hotel and poured gunfire onto a concert below, slaying dozens of people before killing himself.

The Sunday night shooting spree from a 32nd-floor window of the Mandalay Bay hotel, on the Las Vegas Strip, killed at least 59 people before the gunman turned a weapon on himself. More than 500 people were injured, some trampled, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

A candlelight vigil is pictured on the Las Vegas strip following a mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 2, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

The gunman, identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, left no immediate hint of his motive for the arsenal of high-powered weaponry he amassed, including 42 guns, or the carnage he inflicted on a crowd of 22,000 attending an outdoor country music festival.

Paddock was not known to have served in the military, to have suffered from a history of mental illness or to have registered any inkling of social disaffection, political discontent or radical views on social media.

“He was a sick man, a demented man,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters. “Lot of problems, I guess, and we’re looking into him very, very seriously, but we’re dealing with a very, very sick individual”

He declined to answer a question about whether he considered the attack an act of domestic terrorism.

U.S. officials also discounted a claim of responsibility by the Islamic State militant group.

Police said they believed Paddock acted alone.

“We have no idea what his belief system was,” Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters on Monday. “I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath.”

Although police said they had no other suspects, Lombardo said investigators wanted to talk with Paddock’s girlfriend and live-in companion, Marilou Danley, who he said was traveling abroad, possibly in Tokyo.

Lombardo also said detectives were “aware of other individuals” who were involved in the sale of weapons Paddock acquired.

The closest Paddock appeared to have ever come to a brush with the law was for a traffic infraction, authorities said.

As with previous mass shootings that have rocked the United States, the massacre in Las Vegas stirred the ongoing debate about gun ownership, which is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and about how much that right should be subject to controls.

Democrats reiterated what is generally the party’s stance, that legislative action is needed to reduce mass shootings. Republicans argue that restrictions on lawful gun ownership cannot deter criminal behavior.

“We’ll be talking about gun laws as time goes by,” Trump said.

Las Vegas Metro Police and medical workers stage in the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard South. REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

ITINERANT EXISTENCE

The death toll, which officials said could rise, surpassed last year’s record massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Paddock seemed atypical of the overtly troubled, angry young men who experts said have come to embody the profile of most mass shooters.

Public records on Paddock point to an itinerant existence across the U.S. West and Southeast, including stints as an apartment manager and aerospace industry worker. But Paddock appeared to be settling in to a quiet life when he bought a home in a Nevada retirement community a few years ago, about an hour’s drive from Las Vegas and the casinos he enjoyed.

His brother, Eric, described Stephen Paddock as financially well-off and an enthusiast of video poker games and cruises.

“We’re bewildered, and our condolences go out to the victims,” Eric Paddock said in a telephone interview from Orlando, Florida. “We have no idea in the world.”

Las Vegas’s casinos, nightclubs and shopping draw more than 40 million visitors from around the world each year. The Strip was packed with visitors when the shooting started shortly after 10 p.m. local time on Sunday during the Route 91 Harvest music festival.

The gunfire erupted as country music star Jason Aldean was performing. He ran off stage as the shooting progressed.

Video of the attack showed throngs of people screaming in horror and cowering on the open ground as extended bursts of gunfire strafed the crowd from above, from a distance police estimated at more than 500 yards (460 meters).

The bloodshed ended after police swarming the hotel closed in on the gunman, who shot and wounded a hotel security officer through the door of his two-room suite and then killed himself before police entered, authorities said.

Police said 23 guns were found in Paddock’s suite.

Lombardo said a search of the suspect’s car turned up a supply of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer compound that can be formed into explosives and was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of a federal office building that killed 168 people.

Police found another 19 firearms, some explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition at Paddock’s home in Mesquite, about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Las Vegas.

They also obtained a warrant to search a second house connected to Paddock in Reno, Nevada.

Chris Sullivan, the owner of the Guns & Guitars shop in Mesquite, issued a statement confirming that Paddock was a customer who cleared “all necessary background checks and procedures,” and said his business was cooperating with investigators.

“He never gave any indication or reason to believe he was unstable or unfit at any time,” Sullivan said. He did not say how many or the kinds of weapons Paddock purchased there.

Lombardo said investigators knew that a gun dealer had come forward to say that he had sold weapons to the suspect, but it was not clear if he was referring to Sullivan. He said police were aware of “some other individuals who were engaged in those transactions,” including at least one in Arizona.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen and Frank McGurty in New York, Doina Chiacu and Jeff Mason in Washington, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Ali Abdelaty in Cairo and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Steve Gorman and Scott Malone; Editing by Paul Tait and Frances Kerry)

Mosque where Florida nightclub shooter worshiped set on fire

A view of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, a center attended by Omar Mateen who attacked Pulse nightclub in Orlando, in Fort Pierce, Florida,

By Laila Kearney

(Reuters) – The Florida mosque where Omar Mateen, who committed the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, prayed was damaged on Monday in an arson attack, investigators said.

Mateen was killed by law enforcement officials after fatally shooting 49 people and wounding 53 others in a gay nightclub in Orlando in June.

Local law enforcement officers received reports of flames rising from the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, located about 100 miles (161 km) southeast of Orlando, at about 12:30 a.m. EDT, St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Major David Thompson told reporters at a news conference. No one was injured.

The attack occurred on one of the holiest Muslim holidays.

Surveillance video showed a person approach the mosque moments before the blaze erupted, he said.

“Immediately after the individual approached, a flash occurred and the individual fled the area,” Thompson said.

Investigators will work to enhance the footage to identify the suspect, he said.

Mateen told police in a 911 call that he had pledged his allegiance to the head of the Islamic State militant group, though investigators do not believe he had any help from outside organizations.

Shortly after the massacre, the mosque in Fort Pierce was identified as Mateen’s place of worship. It has reported receiving multiple threats of violence and intimidation. In June a motorcycle gang circled the center and shouted at its members, and in July a Muslim man was beaten outside the mosque.

Thompson said investigators were still seeking a motive for the attack and were considering a connection with the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on Sunday.

“I would not want to speculate, but certainly that is in the back of our minds,” he said.

The Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday, is being celebrated on Monday and also could have prompted the attack, Thompson said.

The mosque temporarily relocated its morning prayers for Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of Sacrifice.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Jeffrey Benkoe)

After mass shooting, German Police focus on “dark net” crime

An investigator of the Cybercrime Intelligence Unit of Germany's Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) Federal Crime Office is pictured during a media day in Wiesbaden

By Frank Siebelt

WIESBADEN, Germany (Reuters) – German police will do more to fight crime committed on the “dark net”, they said on Wednesday, days after a gunman killed nine people with a weapon bought on that hidden part of the internet.

“We see that the dark net is a growing trading place and therefore we need to prioritize our investigations here,” Holger Muench, head of Germany’s Federal Police (BKA), told journalists as he presented the latest annual report on cyber crime.

The dark net, which is only accessible via special web browsers, is increasingly used to procure drugs, weapons and counterfeit money, allowing users to trade anonymously and pay with digital currencies such as Bitcoin, the BKA said.

The man who killed nine people at a shopping mall in Munich on Friday was a local 18-year-old obsessed with mass killings who had bought his reactivated 9mm Glock 17 pistol on the dark web, Bavarian officials said.

The BKA said it had taken five market places in the dark net out of circulation last year. Muench said the BKA did not just want to take the sites offline but also catch criminals using them.

Cyber crime cost Germany 40.5 million euros ($44.5 million) last year, the BKA’s report said, a rise of 2.8 percent. Most of the more than 45,000 cases involved computer fraud.

Muench said the figures only represented a small part of the true size of cyber crime.

“If we look ahead we see little relief,” he said. “Cyber crime is still a growing phenomenon – you could say almost a growing business, even a growing industry.”

Police solved 32.8 percent of cyber crime last year, Muench said, adding that many crimes do not get past the exploratory phase and others go unnoticed or are not reported.

(Writing and additional reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Islamic State-linked account posts photo purported to be Orlando nightclub shooter

Police and fire trucks in front of Pulse night club

CAIRO (Reuters) – A Twitter account associated with Islamic State on Sunday posted a photo purported to be Omar Mateen, identified by U.S. authorities as the shooter who killed at least 50 people in a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

“The man who carried out the Florida nightclub attack which killed 50 people and injured dozens,” the caption accompanying the photo read. There was no official Islamic State statement.

It was not possible to verify whether the picture was in fact of Mateen. Other Twitter accounts linked to Islamist militancy also carried photos of the same individual, and Islamic State supporters posted messages of praise for the attack.

(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Fifty people killed in massacre at Florida gay nightclub: police

Friends/Family mourning at Orlando shooting

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – A gunman killed 50 people and injured 53 in a crowded gay nightclub in the tourist hub of Orlando, Florida, early on Sunday before being shot dead by police, authorities said, in what appeared the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

The shooter was identified as Omar S. Mateen, a man that a senior FBI official said might have had leanings toward Islamic State militants. Officials described the attack as a “terrorism incident” though cautioned that the suspected Islamist connection required further investigation.

The death toll given by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and police to reporters made the attack the deadliest single shooting incident in U.S. history, eclipsing the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech university, which left 32 dead.

“Today we’re dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable,” Dyer said. Recalling earlier estimates that 20 people had been killed, he added, “It is with great sadness I share that we not have 20 but 50 casualties (dead), in addition to the shooter. There are another 53 …hospitalized.”

A police officer working as a security guard inside the Pulse nightclub, which has operated in downtown Orlando since 2004, exchanged fire with the suspect at about 2 a.m. EDT, police officials said.

A hostage situation quickly developed, and three hours later a squad of officers stormed the club and shot dead the gunman. It was unclear when the gunman shot the victims.

“Do we consider this an act of terrorism? Absolutely, we are investigating this from all parties’ perspective as an act of terrorism,” said Danny Banks, special agent in charge of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. “Whether that is domestic terrorist activity or an international one, that is something we will certainly get to the bottom of.”

When asked if the FBI suspected the gunman might have had inclinations toward militant Islam, including a possible sympathy for Islamic State, Ronald Hopper, an assistant FBI agent in charge, told reporters: “We do have suggestions that the individual may have leanings toward that particular ideology. But right now we can’t say definitively.”

The FBI said it was still trying to pin down whether the mass shooting was a hate crime against gays or a terrorist act.

President Barack Obama ordered the federal government to provide any assistance needed to Florida police investigating the shooting, the White House said in a statement.

The attacker was carrying an assault rifle and a handgun, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. He was also carrying an unidentified “device”, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said earlier.

Javer Antonetti, 53, told the Orlando Sentinel newspaper that he was near the back of the dance club when he heard gunfire. “There were so many (shots), at least 40,” he said. “I saw two guys and it was constant, like ‘pow, pow, pow,’.”

Video footage showed police officers and civilians carrying injured people away from the club and bending over others who were lying on the ground. Dozens of police cruisers, ambulances and other emergency vehicles could be seen in the area.

‘HORRIFIC ACT’

Pulse is described on its website as more than “just another gay club.” One of the club’s founders and owners, Barbara Poma, opened it in 2004 in an effort to keep alive the spirit of her brother, who died after battling HIV.

The choice of target was especially heart-wrenching for members of the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, LGBT advocacy group Equality Florida said in a statement.

“Gay clubs hold a significant place in LGBTQ history. They were often the only safe gathering place and this horrific act strikes directly at our sense of safety,” the group said. “We will await the details in tears of sadness and anger.”

It was the second deadly shooting at an Orlando night spot in as many nights. Late Friday, a man thought to be a deranged fan fatally shot Christina Grimmie, a rising singing star and a former contestant on “The Voice”, as she was signing autographs after a concert in the central Florida city.

Orlando has a population of 270,930 and is the home of the famed Disney World amusement park and many other tourist attractions that attracted 62 million visitors in 2014.

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Chris Michaud in New York and Mary Milliken in Los Angeles; Writing by Frank McGurty and Scott Malone; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Kansas shooting suspect had been served protection order

(Reuters) – The man suspected of killing three people at the Kansas lawnmower factory where he worked had been served a protection order 90 minutes before his shooting spree, which also wounded 14 people, authorities said on Friday.

The suspect, identified as Cedric Ford, 38, was armed with a .223-caliber assault-style rifle and a pistol as he fired randomly at coworkers and others over about 30 minutes on Thursday.

He was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the first police officer to reach the scene, Hesston Police Chief Doug Schroeder, police secretary Jeannine Hoheisel said. Hesston is a town of about 4,000 people about 36 miles north of Wichita, Hoheisel said.

“The man was not going to stop shooting,” Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton said at a news conference on Friday, noting that there were up to 300 people in the Excel Industries factory where the worst of the rampage took place. “The only reason he stopped shooting is because that officer stopped the shooter.”

Ford had been served a protection from abuse order earlier Thursday at the factory, which may have triggered the bloodshed, authorities said. He left the factory after being served but began shooting about 90 minutes later.

The order, posted by the Wichita Eagle on its web site, was sought by an unidentified woman who had been living with Ford and said he had been physically abusive. She wrote in the order that he was alcoholic, violent, depressed and in need of medical and psychological help.

Ford had been jailed a couple of times before, Walton said.

Police identified the victims as Renee Benjamin, 30; Josh Higbee, 31; and Brian Sadowsky, 40, according to the KWCH television station.

The shooting began with Ford firing out of his vehicle as he drove through two cities back to the factory, Walton has said. He stole one victim’s car, went to Excel Industries and shot someone in the parking lot before going inside.

Law enforcement officials were checking to see if the firearms were legally purchased.

All 14 wounded victims remain at hospitals and at least five were initially listed in critical condition.

The attack follows a mass shooting in Michigan last weekend, when a driver for car-hailing service Uber [UBER.UL] killed six people.

President Barack Obama, at an event in Jacksonville, Florida, expressed exasperation with the U.S. Congress’ failure to act on gun violence issues.

“The real tragedy is the degree to which this has become routine,” he said.

The number of mass shootings in the United States has elevated gun control as a campaign issue in the November U.S. presidential election.

(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere, Suzannah Gonzales, Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton; Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn; Bill Trott and Andrew Hay)

Michigan Uber driver admits role in deadly shooting spree, police say

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (Reuters) – A man working as an Uber driver admitted to the fatal weekend shootings of six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a police detective testified on Monday in a case raising questions about how the car service vets its drivers.

Jason Dalton, 45, was denied bail as he made his first court appearance on 16 charges including six of murder that can bring life in prison.

Dalton told detectives “he took people’s lives”, Kalamazoo Public Safety Detective Cory Ghiringhelli testified in a county district court ahead of the suspect’s arraignment.

Dalton appeared via a video link and was seen on a monitor at the Kalamazoo County court wearing glasses and dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit.

When asked if he had anything to say, Dalton, who appeared emotionless through the proceedings, said he preferred to “remain silent”.

The judge denied bail and set March 3 for the next hearing.

After the hearing Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey Getting told reporters Dalton had been cooperative with authorities but possible motives for the shootings were still unclear.

“No one understands why it happened, and that adds to the fear and the sorrow,” Getting said.

Prosecutors alleged Dalton randomly shot multiple times at people during a five-hour period on Saturday at an apartment complex, a car dealership and a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Kalamazoo, about 150 miles (240 km) west of Detroit.

Police were investigating reports Dalton drove customers of the Uber car-hailing service the night of the rampage. Two people were wounded in the shootings, including a teenage girl who was initially thought to have died but was showing signs of improvement on Monday, state police said.

Initial checks with a key federal agency indicate Dalton was unknown to both law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies for having any known connection to extremist groups.

President Barack Obama said on Monday he had spoken to the mayor and top law enforcement in Kalamazoo about the shootings and pledged whatever federal support they need.

“Earlier this year, I took some steps that will make it harder for dangerous people like this individual to buy a gun. But clearly, we’re going to need to do more if we’re going to keep innocent Americans safe,” Obama said in remarks before the National Governors Association at the White House.

Uber said on Monday it would not be changing the way it screened its drivers following the weekend shooting spree. It also said Dalton had received “very favorable” feedback from riders.

“There were no red flags, if you will, that we could anticipate something like this,” said Uber’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan.

Uber drivers use their personal vehicles to ferry customers at prices generally below those of established taxi companies. Critics contend vetting is inadequate and the company never meets potential drivers in person.

“A background check is just that – a background check. It does not foresee the future,” Ed Davis, of the Uber Safety Advisory Board, told a teleconference with reporters.

The Dalton family said in a statement: “There are no words which can express our shock and disbelief, and we are devastated and saddened for the victims and the families of the victims,” Michigan State Police said the shooting began at about 5:30 p.m. (2230 GMT) on Saturday with a woman wounded outside an apartment building. At about 10 p.m., Richard Smith and his son Tyler were killed at the car dealership.

About 15 minutes later four women identified as Mary Lou Nye, 62, of Baroda, Michigan; and Dorothy Brown, 74; Barbara Hawthorne, 68; and Mary Jo Nye, 60, were fatally shot outside the restaurant.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Mark Hosenball and Ayesha Rascoe in Washington, D.C. Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, Barbara Goldberg in New York, Mary Wisniewski in Chicago and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Bill Trott and Tom Brown)

FBI: Chattanooga Shooter Motivated By Terrorist Propaganda

The man who killed five people in shootings this summer in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was inspired by foreign terrorist propaganda, FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday.

Comey made the comments while speaking at a news conference in New York.

“We have concluded that the Chattanooga killer was inspired by a foreign terrorist organization’s propaganda,” Comey told reporters, though he added the source of the propaganda couldn’t be determined and stopped short of mentioning a specific group.

“There’s competing foreign terrorist poison out there,” Comey said at the news conference. “But, to my mind, there’s no doubt that the Chattanooga killer was inspired and motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda. We’ve investigated it from the beginning as a terrorist case.”

Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez opened fire at two military locations on July 16.

The Kuwait native and naturalized U.S. citizen first fired upon a recruiting center, then drove seven miles to a Naval reserve facility and opened fire again. The 24-year-old killed four Marines and a sailor, all of them located at the reserve, before he was killed in a shootout with police.

In a televised address to the nation from the Oval Office on Dec. 6, President Barack Obama called the Chattanooga shooting an act of terrorism. But authorities had offered little public detail about why they believed it was terrorism-related until Comey’s comments Wednesday.

Terrorist groups often use social media to spread propaganda and communicate, and federal lawmakers have proposed new bills to combat that in the wake of the Dec. 2 mass shooting that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. Obama has also called that an act of terrorism.

California Shooting Suspects Had Arsenal of Bombs and Ammunition

The suspects who allegedly killed 14 people and wounded 21 more during a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., on Wednesday had a dozen explosive devices in their home, police said.

San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan said at a Thursday news conference that “12 pipe bomb-type devices” were found at the home of the two deceased suspects, along with “hundreds of tools” that the two could have used to manufacture other explosive devices. That’s in addition to an unexploded pipe bomb that Burguan said police discovered at the scene of the shooting.

One day after the violent attack, the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, authorities were still working to piece together the precise set of circumstances that surrounded the carnage. But there were some details that emerged.

Burguan said the suspects, who police have identified as Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, allegedly sprayed between 65 and 75 bullets during a rampage at the Inland Regional Center before fleeing in a dark-colored SUV. They were later killed in a shootout with police.

The chief said police also discovered at least 4,500 additional rounds of ammunition at the home of the married couple, fueling speculation about what the suspects might have been planning. Police had not released an exact motive as of Thursday afternoon, though CNN quoted Burguan as saying that the two “were equipped … and they could have done another attack.”

According to numerous published reports, Farook was an employee of the San Bernardino County Public Health Department, which was hosting a holiday party at Inland Regional Center at the time of the shooting. Burguan is quoted in several reports as saying that Farook left the event angrily and abruptly, then he and his wife returned in tactical gear and began shooting.

Speaking from the Oval Office, President Barack Obama told reporters that the attackers might have had “mixed motives.” The Los Angeles Times quoted a federal law enforcement source as saying that a “combination of terrorism and workplace” was what investigators were focusing on, and they were trying to determine if the act was inspired by or directed by a terrorist group.

Multiple media organizations report that Farook was Muslim, though it’s not clear if he had been radicalized or had any links to religious extremist groups. Co-workers told The Los Angeles Times that he seldom discussed his religion at work, and had attended the same holiday event last year.

A relative told the New York Times the suspects met on an Internet dating site. Farook was born to Pakistani parents in Illinois and Malik was a Pakistani native living in Saudi Arabia. A relative told the newspaper that Farook flew to Saudi Arabia twice, including once to marry Malik. They had been married for about two years, according to an NPR report.

Citing family members, CNN reported that the suspects had a six-month-old daughter that they left at a grandmother’s house sometime on Wednesday. They claimed to be going to the doctor. Instead, police say they went to the party at about 11 a.m. and opened fire. Police believe they were the only two gunmen, and earlier reports of a potential third shooter were inaccurate.

Residents of the Redlands, California, neighborhood where the suspects lived spoke to the BBC and described it “peaceful” and home to “a bunch of innocent people.” The neighbors said there was no indication that the suspects were planning or capable of committing such a shooting.

It was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since a gunman killed 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.

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