Tag Archives: gunman

Texas church gunman escaped mental facility in 2012 while facing court-martial

Texas church gunman escaped mental facility in 2012 while facing court-martial

By Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Maria Garza

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – The former U.S. serviceman who committed the deadliest mass shooting on record in Texas escaped from a mental hospital in 2012 as he faced court-martial on domestic violence charges for which he was later convicted, a police report revealed on Tuesday.

The report also disclosed that police who were alerted to Devin Kelley’s escape were advised that he posed a “danger to himself and others” after being “caught sneaking firearms” onto the U.S. Air Force base in New Mexico where he was stationed.

The person who reported the escape, according to the report, further warned that Kelley, then aged 21, had been “attempting to carry out death threats” against his military commanders and “suffered from mental disorders.”

He was apprehended without incident at an El Paso, Texas, bus station shortly after he had run off, according to a police report filed in that city.

Kelley’s troubled Air Force background has been a focus of investigators in the tiny Texas town of Sutherland Springs since he stormed into a church there on Sunday with a semi-automatic assault rifle and opened fire on worshipers.

Authorities have said 26 people were killed in the assault, including the unborn child of a pregnant woman who was among the dead. Another 20 people were wounded, half of them still listed in critical condition as of Tuesday.

Officials said Kelley, 26, killed himself during a failed getaway attempt after he was wounded by an armed civilian who tried to stop him. Two handguns belonging to the killer also were recovered.

A major sporting goods dealer in San Antonio later confirmed that Kelley twice passed a required criminal background check when he bought guns there during the past year, despite having a criminal record that should have prevented those purchases.

Kelley was found guilty by court-martial in 2012 of assaulting his first wife and a stepson while serving at Holloman Air Force Base, where he was assigned to a logistics readiness unit, the Pentagon reported on Monday.

But the Air Force also acknowledged it inexplicably failed to enter his conviction into a government database that all licensed firearms dealers are required to use to screen prospective gun buyers for their criminal history.

Federal law prohibits anyone from selling a gun to someone who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence against a spouse or child.

On Capitol Hill, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas, called the failure to transmit Kelley’s record into the National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) system an “appalling” lapse.

The Air Force has opened an inquiry into the matter, and the U.S. Defense Department has requested a review by its inspector general to ensure other criminal cases have been reported correctly, Pentagon officials said.

Two U.S. senators, Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democratic Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, said they planned to co-sponsor legislation aimed at ensuring that anyone convicted of domestic violence, whether in civilian or military court, would be blocked from legally purchasing a gun.

Firearms experts said the case involving Kelley, who spent a year in military detention before his bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force in 2014, exposed a previously unnoticed weak link in the system of background checks.

BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS AS STUDENT

Texas public school records also showed Kelley had numerous behavior problems as a student, including nine suspensions for such issues as drugs, insubordination, profanity, skipping classes and dishonesty between sixth grade and high school graduation.

His private adult life appears to have likewise been marked by turbulence.

After divorcing the woman he was convicted of assaulting, Kelley remarried in 2014, but authorities have said he became embroiled in some unspecified domestic dispute with her parents that involved him sending threatening text messages to his mother-in-law.

Kelley’s in-laws occasionally attended services at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs but were not there when he attacked worshipers during Sunday prayers, authorities said.

“We have some indication of what the conflict was between the family,” Freeman Martin, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a Tuesday news conference. It was not clear what role, if any, the dispute played as a motivating factor in Sunday’s violence.

Kelley’s cell phone was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab at Quantico, Virginia, but specialists were not immediately able to gain electronic access to the device, said Christopher Combs, the FBI’s special agent in charge in San Antonio.

The massacre, which ranked as the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in Texas history, and one of the five most lethal ever in the United States, rekindled an ongoing debate over gun ownership, which is protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Guns are part of the fabric of life in rural areas.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters he believed stricter reviews of gun purchases would not have stopped Sunday’s rampage.

“There would have been no difference,” Trump said during a visit to South Korea. He added that stricter gun laws might have prevented the man who shot Kelley from acting as he did. “You would have had hundreds more dead.”

(Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in New York, Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Idrees Ali traveling with U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis; Writing by Scott Malone and Steve Gorman; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Shumaker)

Gunman kills 26 in rural Texas church during Sunday service

By Lisa Maria Garza

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – A man with an assault rifle killed at least 26 people and wounded 20 in a rural Texas church during Sunday services, adding the name of Sutherland Springs to the litany of American communities shattered by mass shootings.

The massacre, which media reports say was carried out by a man thrown out of the Air Force for assaulting his wife and child, is likely to renew questions about why someone with a history of violence could amass an arsenal of lethal weaponry.

The lone gunman, dressed in black tactical gear and a ballistic vest, drove up to the white-steepled First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs and started firing inside. He kept shooting once he entered, killing or wounding victims ranging in age from five to 72 years, police told a news conference.

The area around a site of a mass shooting is taped out in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017, in this picture obtained via social media.

The area around a site of a mass shooting is taped out in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017, in this picture obtained via social media. MAX MASSEY/ KSAT 12/via REUTERS

President Donald Trump told reporters the shooting was due to a “mental health problem” and wasn’t “a guns situation.” He was speaking during an official visit to Japan.

Among the dead was the 14-year-old daughter of church Pastor Frank Pomeroy, the family told several television stations. One couple, Joe and Claryce Holcombe, told the Washington Post they lost eight extended family members, including their pregnant granddaughter-in-law and three of her children.

The gunman was later found dead, apparently of a gunshot wound, after he fled the scene.

“We are dealing with the largest mass shooting in our state’s history,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott told a news conference. “The tragedy of course is worsened by the fact that it occurred in a church, a place of worship.”

About 40 miles (65 km) east of San Antonio in Wilson County, Sutherland Springs has fewer than 400 residents.

“This would never be expected in a little county like (this),” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told CNN.

A local resident with a rifle fired at the suspect as he left the church. The gunman dropped his Ruger assault weapon and fled in his vehicle, said Freeman Martin, regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

A man told San Antonio television station KSAT he was driving near the church when the resident who had opened fire on the gunman approached his truck and urged him to give chase.

“He said that we had to get him (the gunman), and so that’s what I did,” Johnnie Langendorff, the driver of the truck, told KSAT. He added they reached speeds of 95 miles (153 km/h) per hour during the chase, while he was on the phone with emergency dispatchers.

Soon afterward, the suspect crashed the vehicle near the border of a neighboring county and was found dead inside with a cache of weapons. It was not immediately clear if he killed himself or was hit when the resident fired at him outside the church, authorities said.

The suspect’s identity was not disclosed by authorities, but law enforcement officials who asked not to be named said he was Devin Patrick Kelley, described as a white, 26-year-old man, the New York Times and other media reported.

“We don’t think he had any connection to this church,” Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt told CNN. “We have no motive.”

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett gives an update during a news conference at the Stockdale Community Center following a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs that left many dead and injured in Stockdale, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017.

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett gives an update during a news conference at the Stockdale Community Center following a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs that left many dead and injured in Stockdale, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

‘I HIT THE DECK’

The massacre came weeks after a sniper killed 58 people in Las Vegas. It was the deadliest attack in modern U.S. history and rekindled a years-long national debate over whether easy access to firearms was contributing to the trend of mass shootings.

In rural areas like Sutherland Springs, gun ownership is a part of life and the state’s Republican leaders for years have balked at campaigns for gun control, arguing that more firearms among responsible owners make the state safer.

Jeff Forrest, a 36-year-old military veteran who lives a block away from the church, said what sounded like high-caliber, semi-automatic gunfire triggered memories of his four combat deployments with the Marine Corps.

“I was on the porch, I heard 10 rounds go off and then my ears just started ringing,” Forrest said. “I hit the deck and I just lay there.”

To honor the victims, Trump ordered flags on all federal buildings to be flown at half staff.

In Japan during the first leg of a 12-day Asian trip, the president said preliminary reports indicated the shooter was “deranged.”

“This isn’t a guns situation, I mean we could go into it, but it’s a little bit soon to go into it,” Trump said. “But fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise … it would have been much worse. But this is a mental health problem at the highest level.”

The First Baptist Church is one of two houses of worship in Sutherland Springs, which also has two gas stations and a Dollar General store.

The white-painted, one-story church features a small steeple and a single front door. On Sunday, the Lone Star flag of Texas was flying alongside the U.S. flag and a third, unidentified banner.

Inside, there is a small raised platform on which members sang worship songs to guitar music and the pastor delivered a weekly sermon, according to videos posted on YouTube. In one of the clips, a few dozen people, including young children, can be seen sitting in the wooden pews.

It was not clear how many worshipers were inside when Sunday’s shooting occurred.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Online records show a man named Devin Patrick Kelley lived in New Braunfels, Texas, about 35 miles (56 km) north of Sutherland Springs.

The U.S. Air Force said Kelley served in its Logistics Readiness unit at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge in 2014.

Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child, and given a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.

Kelley’s Facebook page has been deleted, but cached photos show a profile picture where he appeared with two small children. He also posted a photo of what appeared to be an assault rifle, writing a post that read: “She’s a bad bitch.”

Sunday’s shooting occurred on the eighth anniversary of the Nov. 5, 2009, massacre of 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base in central Texas. A U.S. Army Medical Corps psychiatrist convicted of the killings is awaiting execution.

In 2015, a white gunman killed nine black parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The gunman was sentenced to death for the racially motivated attack.

In September, a gunman killed a woman in the parking lot of a Tennessee church and wounded six worshipers inside.

 

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Phil Stewart in Washington, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; writing by Frank McGurty; editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

Gunman kills three at Maryland company, suspected in Delaware shooting

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – An employee of a Maryland kitchen countertop company fatally shot three co-workers and critically wounded two others on Wednesday and is suspected in a later shooting in nearby Delaware, authorities said.

A manhunt was on for the suspected gunman, Radee Prince, 37, who entered Advanced Granite Solutions in Edgewood, Maryland, just before 9 a.m. and fired multiple shots from a handgun, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told reporters.

Three people died at the company’s premises in a business park northeast of Baltimore. Two people were taken to a hospital, one of whom had come out of surgery, he said.

Gahler called the shooting a “targeted attack.” Asked about the gunman’s possible motive, he said: “We believe he’s tied into a relationship here at work.”

Prince had worked for Advanced Granite Solutions for the past four months and had been scheduled to work on Wednesday, the sheriff said. The suspect fled in a black GMC Acadia with Delaware license plates after the shooting.

Police in Wilmington, Delaware, about 30 miles northeast of Edgewood, said in a statement that Prince was also being sought in connection with a shooting there about two hours later.

The statement did not give details about the incident and a police spokesman could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Peter Cooney)

Las Vegas police say no delay in massacre response

Las Vegas police say no delay in massacre response

(Reuters) – Las Vegas police presented a third version on Friday of the timeline of events for the Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people and himself, saying they responded immediately to the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, who oversees the Las Vegas police department, told reporters that gunman Stephen Paddock shot at Mandalay Bay hotel security guard Jesus Campos outside his room on Oct. 1 at about the same time he opened fire on the more than 20,000 concertgoers at an outdoor venue.

Previously, police said that Paddock shot Campos six minutes before he started firing on the crowd, raising questions as to whether police and hotel security could have acted faster to prevent casualties in the attack.

“Nobody is attempting to hide anything. The dynamics and the size of the investigation require us to go through voluminous amounts of information in order to draw an accurate picture,” Lombardo said of the changing timeline.

The police account is similar to one given on Thursday by the hotel operator MGM Resorts International <MGM.N>, which said in a statement that Paddock opened fire on Campos and the crowd at the same time or within 40 seconds.

Campos was shot in the leg when Paddock strafed the hallway with about 200 bullets, police said.

Paddock, who placed cameras in the hotel hallway to monitor activity, also injured 546 people before killing himself. No motive for the attack has been made public.

The third timeline could affect claims brought by some victims that depend on the hotel’s allegedly delayed response after Campos was shot. One attorney told Reuters MGM may have acted quickly but questioned whether “reasonable precautions” were in place.

Most of the wounded have been discharged from hospitals, but 45 were still hospitalized, some with critical injuries, Lombardo said.

Lombardo said law enforcement had acted heroically on the night of the attack and that he was angered by the criticism his department has received over its investigation.

“In the public space, the word incompetence has been brought forward and I am absolutely offended with that characterization,” he said.

Aaron Rouse, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas Federal Bureau of Investigation office, said there was no information Paddock was a member of an extremist group. Rouse added the FBI has hundreds of agents on the case working with local law enforcement.

“Nothing will be overlooked. We have made significant progress,” Rouse said. Neither Lombardo nor Rouse took questions.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit and Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Susan Thomas and Cynthia Osterman)

Las Vegas gunman fired on guard and crowd at about same time: MGM

The site of the Route 91 music festival mass shooting is seen outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 2, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – The owner of the hotel where a gunman carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history on Thursday provided a new version of the timeline, suggesting there was no time for hotel staff to warn police.

Stephen Paddock opened fire on Mandalay Bay hotel security guard Jesus Campos and the crowd attending an outdoor concert nearby at the same time, or within 40 seconds of each other, MGM Resorts International <MGM.N> said in a statement.

Police have still not determined a motive for the shooting.

MGM’s account differed from the updated timeline Las Vegas police provided on Monday, when they said Campos had been shot six minutes before Paddock opened fire on the crowd from his 32nd-floor suite and killed 58 people on Oct. 1. MGM said on Tuesday the revised police timeline might not be accurate.

A Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, Officer Larry Hadfield, said the police would have no immediate comment on the hotel’s latest statement. The Las Vegas office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation could not immediately be reached for comment.

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, who oversees the Las Vegas police department, on Wednesday defended the speed of the police response in an interview with the Las Vegas CBS television affiliate.

“No matter what that timeline was, the response was as quick as possible. I don’t think the response could have been any faster,” Lombardo said in a video posted on the station’s LasVegasNow.com website.

The revised timeline police provided on Monday raised new questions, including why Paddock ceased firing on concert-goers once he began, and whether hotel security and police coordinated as well as first believed.

MGM said the 9:59 p.m. time that police said is when Campos was shot was derived from a hotel report created manually after the fact without the benefit of information the hotel now has.

“We are now confident that the time stated in this report is not accurate,” MGM said. “We know that shots were being fired at the festival lot at the same time as, or within 40 seconds after, the time Jesus Campos first reported that shots were fired over the radio.”

Las Vegas police officers were with armed hotel security officers in the building when Campos, who was checking an open-door alarm also on the 32nd floor, first reported that shots were fired over the radio, MGM said. Both groups immediately responded to the 32nd floor.

The police have said they assembled a SWAT team and burst into Paddock’s room to find him dead 81 minutes after the shooting began.

“We will continue to work with law enforcement as we have from the first moments of this tragedy as they work toward developing an accurate timeline,” MGM said.

MGM’s new timeline is a blow to lawyers representing some of the victims, whose claims depend heavily on the hotel’s allegedly delayed response following the shooting of Campos. A lawsuit filed in Nevada state court on Tuesday on behalf of a California woman injured in the shooting alleged the hotel acted negligently by responding too late.

Neama Rahmani, a Los Angeles lawyer representing some of the victims, said in an email on Thursday that MGM may have acted quickly, “but the question of whether reasonable precautions were in place remains.”

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Additional reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Writing by Ben Klayman,; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

Las Vegas massacre probe turns to gunman’s girlfriend ahead of Trump visit

Las Vegas massacre probe turns to gunman's girlfriend ahead of Trump visit

By Sharon Bernstein and Alexandria Sage

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – The quest by police to comprehend why a retiree shot 58 people to death in Las Vegas has turned to the gunman’s girlfriend, who has flown back to the United States from the Philippines facing investigators’ questions about what she knew of his motives.

Stephen Paddock, who killed himself moments before police stormed the hotel suite he had transformed into a sniper’s nest on Sunday night, left no clear clues as to his reasons for staging the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

But law enforcement authorities were hoping to obtain some answers from the woman identified as Paddock’s live-in companion, Marilou Danley, who Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo called a “person of interest” in the investigation.

Danley boarded a Philippine Airlines passenger jet in Manila, where she had traveled to before the shooting rampage, for a non-stop flight to Los Angeles International Airport, landing there as scheduled on Tuesday night.

A police official in Manila, the Philippines capital, and a law enforcement official in the United States, both speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Danley was being met by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Los Angeles.

The U.S. source said Danley was not under arrest but that the FBI hoped she would consent to be interviewed voluntarily.

Investigators were examining a $100,000 wire transfer Paddock sent to an account in the Philippines that “appears to have been intended” for Danley, a senior U.S. homeland security official told Reuters on Tuesday.

The official, who has been briefed regularly on the probe but spoke on condition of anonymity, said the working assumption of investigators was that the money was intended as a form of life insurance payment for Danley.

Danley’s return to the United States is the latest development in a case which has baffled investigators for its lack of any apparent motive by the killer. It comes ahead of a condolence visit by President Donald Trump to Las Vegas on Wednesday.

Trump, who strongly supported gun rights during his bid for the White House, now confronts for the first time as president the tragic aftermath of deadly firearms violence that has routinely claimed hundreds of lives in recent years.

On Tuesday, he referred to Paddock as “a sick man, a demented man,” and in response to renewed calls for tougher gun control measures, said, “we’ll be talking about gun laws as time goes by.”

A combination photo of victims of the October 1, 2017 mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, seen in these undated social media photos obtained by Reuters October 3, 2017. They are (top L-R) Christopher Christopher Roybal, Melissa Ramirez, Jack Beaton, Adrian Murfitt, Angie Gomez, (bottom L-R) Jessica Klymchuk, Bailey Schweitzer, Sonny Melton, and Jordan McIldon. Social media/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

A combination photo of victims of the October 1, 2017 mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, seen in these undated social media photos obtained by Reuters October 3, 2017. They are (top L-R) Christopher Christopher Roybal, Melissa Ramirez, Jack Beaton, Adrian Murfitt, Angie Gomez, (bottom L-R) Jessica Klymchuk, Bailey Schweitzer, Sonny Melton, and Jordan McIldon. Social media/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

MONEY TRAIL TO PHILIPPINES

In Las Vegas, police acknowledged being stymied in their initial attempts to determine what drove Paddock, 64, to assemble an arsenal of high-powered weapons in a 32nd-floor hotel suite and unleash a barrage of gunfire onto an crowded outdoor concert below.

Investigators hope Danley may shed some additional light on the carnage, carried out by an individual with no criminal record, no known history of mental illness and no outward signs of social disaffection, political discontent or extremist ideology.

Danley, an Australian citizen reported to have been born in the Philippines, had been sharing Paddock’s condo at a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada, about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Las Vegas, according to police and public records.

The homeland security official said U.S. authorities were eager to question Danley, who described herself on social media websites as a “casino professional,” mother and grandmother, about whether Paddock encouraged her to leave the United States before he went on his rampage.

“He sent her away so that he can plan what he is planning without interruptions, in that sense I thank him for sparing my sister’s life, but that won’t be to compensate the 59 people’s lives,” two of her sisters told Australia’s Seven Network television.

Danley’s sisters, whose full identities were shielded by the television station, said that Paddock bought her a ticket to the Philippines.

“No-one can put the puzzles together. No-one except Marilou, because Steve is not here to talk anymore. Only Marilou can maybe help,” they said.

Danley arrived in Manila on Sept. 15, more than two weeks before the mass shooting in Las Vegas, then flew to Hong Kong on Sept. 22 and returned in Manila on Sept. 25. She was there until she flew to Los Angeles on Tuesday night, according to a Philippines immigration official.

A Philippine police source said authorities in Manila were told that Paddock used identification belonging to Danley, who has an Australian passport, when checking into the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

Both the Philippines immigration official and police source spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. official said investigators had also uncovered evidence that Paddock may have rehearsed his plans at other venues before ultimately carrying out his attack on the Route 91 Harvest country music festival near the Mandalay Bay hotel.

A candlelight vigil is held at Zack Bagans Haunted Museum in remembrance of victims following the mass shooting along the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

A candlelight vigil is held at Zack Bagans Haunted Museum in remembrance of victims following the mass shooting along the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

ARSENAL RECOVERED

Fresh details about the massacre Paddock’s weaponry emerged on Tuesday.

Police said Paddock strafed the concert crowd with bullets for nine to 11 minutes before taking his own life, and had set up cameras inside and outside his hotel suite so he could see police as they closed in on his location.

A total of 47 firearms were recovered from three locations searched by investigators – Paddock’s hotel suite, his home in Mesquite, and another property associated with him in Reno, Nevada, according to Jill Snyder, special agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

Snyder said 12 of the guns found in the hotel room were fitted with so-called bump-stock devices that allow the guns to be fired virtually as automatic weapons. The devices are legal under U.S. law, even though fully automatic weapons are for the most part banned.

The rifles, shotguns and pistols were purchased in four states – Nevada, Utah, California and Texas – Snyder told reporters at an evening news conference.

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

Police also confirmed that photos widely published online showing the gunman’s body, his hands in gloves, lying on the floor beside two firearms and spent shell casings, were authentic crime-scene images obtained by media outlets. An internal investigation was under way to determine how they were leaked.

Video footage of the shooting spree on Sunday night caught by those on the ground showed throngs of people screaming in horror, some crouching in the open, hemmed in by fellow concert-goers, and others running for cover as extended bursts of gunfire rained onto the crowd of some 20,000.

Police had put the death toll at 59 earlier on Tuesday, not including the gunman. However, the coroner’s office revised the confirmed tally to 58 dead, plus Paddock, on Tuesday night.

More than 500 people were injured, some trampled in the pandemonium. At least 20 of the survivors admitted to one of several hospitals in the area, University Medical Center, remained in critical condition on Tuesday, doctors said.

The union representing firefighters disclosed that a dozen off-duty firefighters who were attending the music festival were shot while trying to render aid to other spectators, two of them while performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on victims.

“This is a true feat of heroism on their part,” said Ray Rahne of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

The gunman’s brother, Eric Paddock, said his family did not plan to hold a funeral for his brother, who was not religious, in part because it could attract unwanted attention. He previously described his brother as a financially well-off enthusiast of video poker and cruises.

The death toll of Sunday’s shooting far surpassed the massacre of 26 young children and educators in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, and the slaying of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando last year.

The latter attack was previously the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Girion in Las Vegas, Jonathan Allen and Frank McGurty in New York, John Walcott, Susan Cornwell, Doina Chiacu and Jeff Mason in Washington, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Toby Chopra)

At least 50 dead, more than 400 hurt in Las Vegas concert attack

People wait in a medical staging area on October 2, 2017, after a mass shooting during a music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

By Devika Krishna Kumar

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – At least 50 people were killed and more than 400 injured when a gunman opened fire on a country music festival in Las Vegas Strip on Sunday, raining down bullets from the 32nd floor of a hotel for several minutes before shooting himself dead, according to police.

The death toll, which police emphasized was preliminary, would make the attack the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, eclipsing last year’s massacre of 49 people at an Orlando night club.

Some 22,000 people were in the crowd when the man opened fire, sending panicked people fleeing the scene, in some cases trampling one another, as law enforcement officers scrambled to locate and kill the gunman. Shocked concert goers, some with blood on their clothes, wandered the streets after the attack.

At least 406 people were taken to area hospitals with injuries, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said.

Police identified the gunman as area resident Stephen Paddock, 64, and said they had no information yet about his motive. Paddock shot himself before police entered the hotel room he was firing from, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters.

Earlier reports indicated that Paddock, who had more than 10 rifles in his hotel room, had been shot by police.

Paddock was not believed to be connected to any militant group, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters.

“We have no idea what his belief system was,” Lombardo said. “We’ve located numerous firearms within the room that he occupied.”

Authorities had earlier regarded Paddock’s roommate as a person of interest, but later on Monday said they no longer regarded her as related to the case, CNN and Fox News reported, citing police sources.

The dead included one off-duty police officer, Lombardo said. Two on-duty officers were injured, including one who was in stable condition after surgery and one who sustained minor injuries, Lombardo said. Police warned the death toll may rise.

Police are still finding people who had taken cover during the attack, Lombardo said.

“It’s going to take time for us to get through the evacuation phase,” Lombardo said.

An ambulance leaves the concert venue after a mass shooting at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 1, 2017.

An ambulance leaves the concert venue after a mass shooting at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 1, 2017. REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

‘JUST KEPT GOING ON’

Video taken of the attack showed panicked crowds fleeing as sustained rapid gunfire ripped through the area.

“It sounded like fireworks. People were just dropping to the ground. It just kept going on,” said Steve Smith, a 45-year-old visitor from Phoenix, Arizona, who had flown in for the concert. He said the gunfire went on for an extended period of time.

“Probably 100 shots at a time. It would sound like it was reloading and then it would go again,” Smith said. “People were shot and trying to get out. A lot of people were shot.”

Las Vegas’s casinos, nightclubs and shopping draw some 3.5 million visitors from around the world each year and the area was packed with visitors when the shooting broke out shortly after 10 p.m. local time (0400 GMT).

Mike McGarry, a 53-year-old financial adviser from Philadelphia, was at the concert when he heard hundreds of shots ring out.

“It was crazy – I laid on top of the kids. They’re 20. I’m 53. I lived a good life,” McGarry said. The back of his shirt bore footmarks, after people ran over him in the panicked crowd.

The shooting broke out on the final night of the three-day Route 91 Harvest festival, a sold-out event attended by thousands and featuring top acts such as Eric Church, Sam Hunt and Jason Aldean.

“Tonight has been beyond horrific,” Aldean said in a statement on Instagram. “It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night.”

 

‘WE’RE HORRIFIED’

The suspected shooter’s brother, Eric Paddock, said the family was stunned by the news.

“We have no idea. We’re horrified. We’re bewildered and our condolences go out to the victims,” Eric Paddock said in a brief telephone interview, his voice trembling. “We have no idea in the world.”

U.S. President Donald Trump offered his condolences to the victims via a post on Twitter early Monday.

“My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!” Trump said.

The rampage was reminiscent of a mass shooting at a Paris rock concert in November 2015 that killed 89 people, part of a wave of coordinated attacks by Islamist militants that left 130 dead.

The concert venue was in an outdoor area known as Las Vegas Village, across the Strip from the Mandalay Bay and the Luxor hotels.

“Our thoughts &amp; prayers are with the victims of last night’s tragic events,” the Mandalay Bay said on Twitter.

Shares of U.S. casino operators fell in premarket trading on Wall Street, with MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay, down 5 percent. Melco Resorts &amp; Entertainment Ltd, Wynn Resorts Ltd and Las Vegas Sands Corp each fell 1 to 2 percent.

 

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen, Chris Michaud and Frank McGurty in New York and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Alison Williams and Bernadette Baum)

 

Palestinian gunman kills three Israeli guards at West Bank settlement

Israeli emergency and security personnel work at the scene where a police spokeswoman said a Palestinian gunman killed three Israelis guards and wounded a fourth in an attack on a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank before himself being shot dead, September 26, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

HAR ADAR, West Bank (Reuters) – A Palestinian man with security clearance to work at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank opened fire at a checkpoint on Tuesday, killing two Israeli security guards and a paramilitary policeman.

The assailant, who was armed with a pistol and also seriously wounded a fourth Israeli, was shot dead, police said.

The incident was unusual in that the 37-year-old man had been issued an Israeli work permit – a process that entails security vetting – unlike most of the Palestinians involved in a wave of street attacks that began two years ago.

A police spokeswoman said the gunman approached Har Adar among a group of Palestinians who work at the settlement, and aroused the suspicion of guards at the entrance checkpoint.

Challenged to halt, the Palestinian “opened his shirt, drew a pistol and fired at the security staff and troopers at close range,” the spokeswoman said.

Residents of the settlement told Israeli media the man worked as a cleaner. One of them, Moish Berdichev, said he had domestic problems – his wife had left him – and speculated he may have carried out the attack knowing he would not survive.

“He was a guy with a good head on his shoulders. It’s a shame. Very sad,” Berdichev told Army Radio.

The Shin Bet internal security service identified the man as Nimr Jamal and said he had “severe personal and family issues, including domestic violence”.

The man lived in the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Suriq, the police said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in public remarks to his cabinet that the man’s house would be demolished and any work permits issued to his relatives would be revoked.

(Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Masked gunman kills woman, wounds several others at Nashville church

The scene where people were injured when gunfire erupted at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., September 24, 2017. Metro Nashville Police Departmen

By Jonathan Allen and Frank McGurty

(Reuters) – A masked gunman killed a woman in the parking lot of a Tennessee church on Sunday morning and wounded six worshipers inside the building before shooting himself in a scuffle with an usher who rushed to stop the attack.

The shooter, identified as Emanuel Kidega Samson, 25, walked into Nashville’s Burnette Chapel Church of Christ wearing a ski mask and opened fire, Metropolitan Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron told reporters.

As the church usher grappled with the suspect, he was struck in the head with the gunman’s weapon before the suspect fired and wounded himself in the chest, police said.

Although injured, the usher, 22-year-old Robert Engle, then retrieved a gun from his vehicle, re-entered the sanctuary and held the suspect at bay until police arrived.

“This is an exceptionally brave individual,” Aaron said of the usher during a briefing outside the church in Antioch, about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of downtown Nashville.

About 50 people were worshipping at the church when the gunman entered. Samson was armed with two pistols and had another handgun and a rifle in his sport utility vehicle, according to a police statement.

Police had not determined the motive behind the shooting, but the spokesman said evidence was found that might establish why the man opened fire.

Church members told investigators Samson attended the church in the past, but not recently, Nashville police said in a statement.

Samson was charged with murder, and authorities planned to bring other charges against him, police said.

A churchgoer, Melanie Smith, 39, of Smyrna, Tennessee, was fatally shot in the parking lot, where she was found lying next to the suspect’s blue SUV.

All but one of the six people wounded by gunfire were 60 or older and were taken to nearby hospitals, said Nashville Fire Department spokesman Joseph Pleasant. At least some of the wounded were in critical condition, he said.

The church’s pastor, Joey Spann, was shot in the chest and was being treated at a hospital, WKRN television news channel reported, citing the pastor’s son. The Nashville Christian School, where Spann is a coach and Bible teacher, said Spann’s wife also was injured.

Samson was treated at a hospital and transferred to a jail. In a photo released by police, he was shown walking in blue hospital garb, as police officers led him along a walkway.

 

 

(Reporting by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Allen in New York, Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Mary Milliken and Simon Cameron-Moore)

 

Oregon college shooter wrote of kinship with mass killers in manifesto

FILE PHOTO: Umpqua Community College alumnus Donice Smith (L) is embraced after she said one of her former teachers was shot dead, near the site of a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg,Oregon October 1, 2015. REUTERS/Steve Dipaola/File Photo

By Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – A gunman who fatally shot nine people at an Oregon college in 2015 wrote of his demonic views and how he shared a bond with other mass killers, documents released by authorities showed on Friday.

The self-titled “My Manifesto” by shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer was among documents released by police and prosecutors following a lengthy investigation into the October 2015 mass shooting at Umpqua Community College near the town of Roseburg.

Armed with five handguns and a rifle, Harper-Mercer, 26, stormed into his writing class, killing his professor and eight students, and wounding eight others before being wounded by police. He then killed himself.

U.S. President Barack Obama at the time spoke forcefully for stricter gun control measures after the massacre, the bloodiest in modern Oregon history.

No criminal charges would be filed in the case, Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin and District Attorney Rick Wesenberg said in a joint statement on Friday.

“All investigative indications are that the shooter acted alone in this incident,” they said. “The shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after exchanging gunfire with law enforcement officers when confronted.”

In the rambling, six-page manifesto that was found on a thumb-drive, Harper-Mercer wrote of his social isolation which forced him to “align with demonic forces.”

“I had no friends, no girlfriend, was all alone,” he wrote. “I had no job, no life, no successes.”

He also described the affinity he had with other serial and mass killers, including Ted Bundy and the school shooters at Columbine High School in Colorado and Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut.

He urged others who have been rejected by society to “give in to your darkest impulses.”

Among the documents released were statements and recordings of police interviews with witnesses, who described the chaotic scene once the gunfire erupted.

Jilliane Michell, an instructor at the college, said she was “terrified” when she heard a volley of gunfire after she left the classroom to use the bathroom.

“I just felt I couldn’t leave the bathroom or I would get shot,” she told detectives.

Michell asked a detective if it was “cowardice” for her to hide during the shooting.

“I don’t think you’re a coward by any means,” the detective said.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)