Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Las Vegas Shooting： Minute by Minute

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Las Vegas Shooting： Minute by Minute · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:14
Speaker 1: It began as a perfect Las Vegas night, a sold
0:20
Speaker 1: out country music festival, warm desert air and the skyline
0:25
Speaker 1: glowing over the Strip. And then the night was shattered.
0:36
Speaker 2: Only automatic fire from an elevator.
0:39
Speaker 1: To take cover. Friends, scattered, strangers pulled each other to safety,
0:57
Speaker 1: and across the city first responders rushed toward the unknown.
1:11
Speaker 1: But how did a night of music and celebration transform
1:16
Speaker 1: into an unimaginable tragedy? What this is the story of
1:27
Speaker 1: October one, twenty seventeen, the deadliest mass shooting by a
1:35
Speaker 1: single gunman in American history, Told minute by minute. Las
1:54
Speaker 1: Vegas rises from the Nevada desert like a mirage oasis
2:00
Speaker 1: of glass, neon and noise. Lights pulse in every direction,
2:09
Speaker 1: marquees promised jackpots and sold out shows, and the streets
2:15
Speaker 1: hum with a steady current of taxis, limousines, and tourists.
2:24
Speaker 1: The casinos never close, Music leaks from open doors into
2:29
Speaker 1: the night, mingling with the distant roar of traffic and
2:33
Speaker 1: the low thrum of bass from rooftop clubs. It's a
2:40
Speaker 1: city built to keep the party going long after the
2:43
Speaker 1: sun comes up. This weekend will be no different. The
2:49
Speaker 1: strip readies itself for another wave of tourists, concerts, and
2:54
Speaker 1: late night crowds. In a few days, the Route ninety
2:59
Speaker 1: one Harvest Festival will take over the streets below with
3:03
Speaker 1: performances from Eric Church, Sam Hunt and Jason Alden, the
3:09
Speaker 1: stage framed by the lights of the Mandalay Bay. That
3:16
Speaker 1: same day, a man named Stephen Paddock arrives in town.
3:24
Speaker 1: He checks into the Mandalay Bay Hotel, Room thirty two
3:27
Speaker 1: one thirty five, a corner suite with a commanding view
3:31
Speaker 1: of the festival grounds. The windows stretch wall to wall,
3:36
Speaker 1: floor to ceiling. At first, he brings no luggage, just
3:45
Speaker 1: spends two hours between his room and a sushi restaurant downstairs.
3:52
Speaker 1: At four fifty three pm, he drives his Chrysler Pacifica
3:56
Speaker 1: to the valet. A bellman loads five suitcases onto a cart.
4:02
Speaker 1: Paddack insists on staying with the bags, so the bellman
4:06
Speaker 1: takes him up via the service elevator, a request not
4:10
Speaker 1: unusual at the hotel. At nine forty pm, he leaves
4:18
Speaker 1: with two suitcases, drives an hour to Mesquite, where he
4:23
Speaker 1: lives in a retirement community, and stays overnight. The next evening,
4:35
Speaker 1: he returns to Vegas, stopping first at the Ogden, a
4:39
Speaker 1: downtown condominium complex where he has also rented rooms for
4:44
Speaker 1: the week. He'd checked in there the previous Friday during
4:48
Speaker 1: the Life Is Beautiful festival. After searching online for its
4:52
Speaker 1: lineup and expected attendants. In the days that followed, his
4:57
Speaker 1: searches turned to the Mandelay Bay, the ninety one Harvest Festival,
5:02
Speaker 1: and police tactics, including the question do police use explosives.
5:13
Speaker 1: Late Tuesday night, he returns to Mandalay Bay. This time
5:17
Speaker 1: seven more suitcases are brought up by a different bellman,
5:21
Speaker 1: again via the service elevator. Paddock tips generously, then spends
5:27
Speaker 1: eight hours gambling, playing high stakes video poker, drinking comped drinks,
5:33
Speaker 1: and feeding thousands into the machines without showing emotion. The
5:42
Speaker 1: following night, the pattern repeats, more trips, more luggage. He
5:47
Speaker 1: moves with the same slow, deliberate rhythm, never hurried, never flustered,
5:53
Speaker 1: his comings and goings blending into the noise of the casino.
6:01
Speaker 1: On Thursday, he buys a three o eight old action rifle,
6:06
Speaker 1: then drives out toward the edge of the desert at
6:10
Speaker 1: a shooting range. The afternoon heat shimmers off the sand
6:15
Speaker 1: the air cracks with gunfire from near by lanes bursts,
6:19
Speaker 1: pauses the ringing echo of metal on metalk. Friday, the
6:30
Speaker 1: Route ninety one festival opens, Paddock checks into the adjoining
6:35
Speaker 1: suite under his girlfriend's name, requests housekeeping leave a food
6:39
Speaker 1: service cart in place, and makes another overnight run to Mesquite.
6:46
Speaker 1: That same day, he wires one hundred thousand dollars to
6:50
Speaker 1: his girlfriend in the Philippines. By Saturday, do not disturb
6:56
Speaker 1: signs hang on both sweet doors. More luggage arrives, two
7:02
Speaker 1: smaller bags than his final trip to Mesquite. Early Sunday morning,
7:10
Speaker 1: he returns for the last time. By twelve sixteen p m.
7:15
Speaker 1: He has moved a total of twenty one suit cases,
7:18
Speaker 1: two smaller bags, a laptop bag, and a large container
7:23
Speaker 1: into the two rooms. He plants a hallway camera on
7:29
Speaker 1: the food cart, opens and locks the adjoining doors repeatedly,
7:33
Speaker 1: and makes quiet adjustments to the space, moving furniture blocking
7:38
Speaker 1: doors from his windows. The entire festival grounds are in
7:44
Speaker 1: clear view. At nine thirty six p m. He locks
7:49
Speaker 1: the dead bolt to one room for the last time.
7:53
Speaker 1: Four minutes later, Jason Alden takes the stage. Paddock turns
8:00
Speaker 1: the other dead bolt, sealing himself inside. It's the final
8:05
Speaker 1: act of isolation. From here in the darkened room, he
8:10
Speaker 1: takes up his position at a smashed window, settling behind
8:14
Speaker 1: the scope of his rifle. Below him, thousands of people
8:19
Speaker 1: sing and sway, unaware that they have stepped into his crosshairs.
8:27
Speaker 1: On the surface, nothing drew attention, but each detail had
8:32
Speaker 1: been part of something larger, a plan no one could
8:37
Speaker 1: yet see. On stage, Jason Alden plays to a sea
8:55
Speaker 1: of fans. His voice carries over the crowd, more than
9:00
Speaker 1: twenty thousand fans packed shoulder to shoulder. The strip glows
9:11
Speaker 1: in the distance. The air is warm, heavy with dust
9:16
Speaker 1: and sound. Then sharp cracks split the air. At first confusion,
9:28
Speaker 1: some think it's fireworks. A few laugh, glancing upward for
9:33
Speaker 1: sparks that never come, but the cracks continue. Some investigators
9:45
Speaker 1: later believe those opening shots weren't aimed at the crowd
9:49
Speaker 1: at all, but at nearby aviation fuel tanks. His bullets
9:54
Speaker 1: pierced the steel, but jet fuel doesn't explode on impact.
9:59
Speaker 1: It's too stable, two dense, and the tanks are built
10:02
Speaker 1: to withstand it. The attempt failed. On the ground, the
10:08
Speaker 1: music falters. The band plays on but the rhythm shifts.
10:14
Speaker 1: The crowd ripples with unease. Faces turn toward the exits.
10:19
Speaker 1: A few begin drifting cautiously away. Then thirty seconds later,
10:25
Speaker 1: everything changes. The illusion shatters. The crowd surges, panic catches
10:53
Speaker 1: like fire. Stage lights flare, illuminating a sea of faces,
10:59
Speaker 1: fear where there was joy, chaos where there was calm. Then,
11:26
Speaker 1: at nearly the same moment, high above, inside Mandalay Bay Hotel,
11:32
Speaker 1: security officer Jesu's Campost reaches the sealed door to sweep
11:38
Speaker 1: thirty two one thirty five. He has come to check
11:41
Speaker 1: an alarm, a routine call. He tests the handle, but
11:45
Speaker 1: the door doesn't move. It's jammed, barricaded from within. Camp
11:51
Speaker 1: Post pauses, frowning, then lifts his radio to report that
11:55
Speaker 1: the door is blocked. He does not know what waits
11:58
Speaker 1: on the other side. As Campos turns to leave, rounds
12:04
Speaker 1: tear through the hallway, blasting from the suite where Paddock
12:08
Speaker 1: has repositioned. Swinging his fire from the broken window to
12:12
Speaker 1: the corridor, the dry wall shreds around Campos around, strikes
12:18
Speaker 1: his leg. He collapses, the force, dropping him hard onto
12:22
Speaker 1: the carpet, Gritting his teeth. Campos crawls for cover. The
12:33
Speaker 1: strip is transformed. Police frequencies ignite. Officers begin converging security scrambles.
12:43
Speaker 1: The quiet hotel corridor becomes the front line of war.
12:47
Speaker 1: No one saw coming, and still the gunfire reins down.
12:54
Speaker 1: Paddock's weapon sweeps the front of the stage, the thickest
12:58
Speaker 1: part of the crowd. Bodies collapse in clusters. Seventeen seconds later,
13:10
Speaker 1: a third burst, twenty seconds later, a fourth. In less
13:22
Speaker 1: than two minutes, more than three hundred rounds have been
13:25
Speaker 1: poured into the festival grounds. Strangers become medics, belt titan
13:32
Speaker 1: into tourniquets, shirts, press against wounds. Is this son.
13:43
Speaker 3: Coming?
13:44
Speaker 4: Keep coming?
13:45
Speaker 1: Then silence nearly one minute fifty seconds, a haunting pause.
13:54
Speaker 1: The crowd does not know what it means. Some freeze,
13:58
Speaker 1: waiting for the next eruption. Others seize the moment, breaking
14:03
Speaker 1: for gaps in the fences, sprinting across open ground, dragging
14:08
Speaker 1: the wounded, shielding loved ones. High above, Campos lies wounded, gasping,
14:17
Speaker 1: clutching his leg. Then a sound footsteps hotel engineer Stephen
14:24
Speaker 1: Shuck rounds the corner. He was on his way to
14:28
Speaker 1: investigate the barricaded door. Campos had called in. Campos shouts
14:33
Speaker 1: a warning, Shuck dives back. The two men pressed against
14:37
Speaker 1: the wall, Trapped in the narrow hallway. Campos and Shook waight.
14:48
Speaker 1: Unsure if the shooter knows where they are. Unsure if
14:52
Speaker 1: another burst will tear through the wall.
14:55
Speaker 5: Unsurer if they will ever leave the hallway alive.
15:12
Speaker 6: Ahead up, and.
15:19
Speaker 1: The patrol car races into the strip. Its lights cut
15:23
Speaker 1: through the chaos. Officers spill out, weapons drawn. They press
15:33
Speaker 1: themselves against the concrete wall, advancing cautiously toward Mandela Bay.
15:38
Speaker 1: Every second units crashed down from above. They wave desperate
15:45
Speaker 1: concert goers back back into the venue, away from the
15:49
Speaker 1: open line of fire, and then Paddock shifts his barrel drops.
15:56
Speaker 1: He cites them, I can hit my head from bos.
16:07
Speaker 7: Go down, We go down, We go down.
16:08
Speaker 8: With the pay came right out of guys.
16:15
Speaker 1: Everybody, stay down, stay down.
16:17
Speaker 7: Where's it out.
16:21
Speaker 4: North of the medal?
16:22
Speaker 1: Based come out of the windows? Is that what.
16:31
Speaker 9: Springs of the boulevard?
16:33
Speaker 4: We got about forty to fifty people were pinned against.
16:37
Speaker 10: This wall break.
16:40
Speaker 4: We're taking a gunfire.
16:42
Speaker 1: It's going right over our heads.
16:44
Speaker 11: There's the breath coming over again.
16:47
Speaker 1: Six minutes in on stage, right, the grounds are nearly empty,
16:52
Speaker 1: a sea of bodies already gone. But stage left is different.
16:58
Speaker 1: Hundreds are still trapped, crouching behind barriers, pressed flat to
17:03
Speaker 1: the dirt.
17:07
Speaker 9: Goddam it.
17:09
Speaker 12: Paddock unloads his eighth burst.
17:34
Speaker 1: Two officers push inside the Mandolai bay. They move quickly,
17:40
Speaker 1: searching for security staff who can get them to the
17:43
Speaker 1: thirty second floor, the floor where Jesu's campos and maintenance
17:48
Speaker 1: engineer Stephen Schuck are pinned down, but the hallways are deserted. Finally,
18:10
Speaker 1: they find a loan security officer. He leads them to
18:20
Speaker 1: a service elevator, still in operation. It is their way up.
18:31
Speaker 1: Ye good. The Paddock isn't finished, he answers with a
18:50
Speaker 1: tenth burst. You guys, everybody staying out. Couples drag each
19:09
Speaker 1: other toward the rear gates. Strangers carry strangers, arms locked
19:14
Speaker 1: around shoulders, slick with blood. The crowd is no longer
19:21
Speaker 1: a crowd. It's a tide, surging dusted.
19:25
Speaker 4: Run, run, rud rudy.
19:32
Speaker 7: No, don't stop running, I can foot ahead.
19:35
Speaker 1: An eleventh burst, shorter uneven. The rhythm folds as if
19:41
Speaker 1: his weapons are tiring.
19:42
Speaker 4: No, don't stop running, I can hoot, a bad.
19:49
Speaker 1: Ten fifteen PM. A twelfth and final burst no more
19:55
Speaker 1: than fifty rounds slower now, a stuttering cough of fire,
20:01
Speaker 1: then silence. The two officers close on the thirty second floor.
20:25
Speaker 1: They sweep the whole way, eventually finding Campos and Shuck.
20:29
Speaker 1: Both are shaken but alive. Campos, limping, grips his leg
20:40
Speaker 1: where the bullet tore through moments earlier. Their survival feels improbable.
20:50
Speaker 1: Two men caught at the very edge of the storm
21:01
Speaker 1: reinforcements arrive together they begin the long, painstaking process of
21:06
Speaker 1: clearing the floor. Some guests stumbled out, half asleep, confused,
21:13
Speaker 1: unaware of the chaos that had erupted only a few
21:16
Speaker 1: doors down. Every knock carries risk. Every hallway corner could
21:32
Speaker 1: concealed danger. Further down the hall. Another tactical unit stacks
21:46
Speaker 1: against the door of Sweet thirty two one five. The
21:50
Speaker 1: command is quiet, tense. They ready the charge. The hall
22:05
Speaker 1: falls into a hush, broken only by the rising whine
22:09
Speaker 1: of the wind through shattered glass. The sound of it
22:13
Speaker 1: is unmistakable, a low, haunting whistle funneled through the gaping
22:19
Speaker 1: voids where Paddock had smashed the windows wide open.
22:29
Speaker 4: Second might be a camera come for.
22:34
Speaker 1: The officers noticed the camera rigged to a service cart
22:37
Speaker 1: outside the door. One bends down, inspecting it closely, a
22:43
Speaker 1: chilling reminder that the gunmen had prepared for their arrival.
22:48
Speaker 4: Oay, I'm going to hold on the door.
22:49
Speaker 1: Okay. The first officers breach. They move cautiously, rifles raised,
22:56
Speaker 1: anticipating the sudden burst of gunfire from within. Every step
23:02
Speaker 1: is deliberate, adrenaline pounding, their eyes, scanning every shadow, But
23:15
Speaker 1: the room remains silent, no shots, no movement, only the
23:20
Speaker 1: restless moan of wind through broken glass. Inside an arsenal,
23:31
Speaker 1: dozens of rifles laid out with precision scopes, ammunition stacked
23:37
Speaker 1: in neat piles, thousands of rounds, a fortress built in
23:42
Speaker 1: plain sight, and in the center Stephen Paddock, lifeless, a
23:49
Speaker 1: self inflicted wound his final act. In nine to eleven minutes,
23:57
Speaker 1: he fired more than one thousand rounds. He killed fifty
24:01
Speaker 1: eight people that night. Two more would die from their
24:05
Speaker 1: injuries in the days after, Over four hundred struck directly
24:10
Speaker 1: by his bullets, another four hundred injured in the stampede
24:14
Speaker 1: to escape. In all, more than eight hundred sixty lives
24:18
Speaker 1: torn apart in less than a quarter of an hour,
24:22
Speaker 1: America's deadliest mass shooting, and at first almost nothing was
24:28
Speaker 1: known about the men behind it. No manifesto, no note,
24:35
Speaker 1: no explanation. A man who over months stockpiled rifles and
24:42
Speaker 1: ammunition with methodical patients, and then, from the windows of
24:49
Speaker 1: a luxury suite, unleashed devastation on a crowd of thousands,
24:55
Speaker 1: A plan so meticulous, so carefully timed, that only one
25:00
Speaker 1: question lingers in the silence that followed. Who was Stephen Paddock?
25:16
Speaker 1: Nineteen fifty three. Stephen Craig Paddock is born in Clinton, Iowa,
25:22
Speaker 1: a small industrial city pressed against the Mississippi River. It
25:31
Speaker 1: is post World War II America. The factory's hum trains
25:36
Speaker 1: whistled through the night. Beyond the smokestacks, Farmland stretches flat
25:43
Speaker 1: and endless, broken only by silos and grain towers. Life
25:55
Speaker 1: in Clinton is measured by church gatherings, high school games,
25:59
Speaker 1: and the rhythm of shift work. Neighbors know each other's names.
26:04
Speaker 1: Families hold tight, but beneath the surface, not all lives
26:09
Speaker 1: fit the picture of post war prosperity. Families on the
26:14
Speaker 1: margins feel the sting of poverty. More sharply single mothers
26:18
Speaker 1: have few safety nets. Children grow up with the weight
26:21
Speaker 1: of instability on their shoulders. Stephen is the first of
26:26
Speaker 1: four brothers. For a brief time, it is a normal childhood,
26:34
Speaker 1: but the Paddock household is already defined by something darker.
26:39
Speaker 1: His father, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, is no ordinary man. He
26:45
Speaker 1: is a convicted bank robber with a long record, a
26:49
Speaker 1: career criminal whose life runs on the opposite current of
26:53
Speaker 1: the American dream. Stephen is just seven years old when
26:57
Speaker 1: his father is sentenced to twenty years in federal prison,
27:01
Speaker 1: but even that does not end Benjamin's story. Nine years later,
27:07
Speaker 1: he escapes, vanishes, slips out of custody, and disappears into
27:12
Speaker 1: the underworld. The FBI adds him to its ten most
27:17
Speaker 1: Wanted list, posters declare him psychopathic, armed, and dangerous, and
27:23
Speaker 1: then he is gone. For Stephen and his brothers, the
27:31
Speaker 1: absence is permanent. Their father will never again be part
27:34
Speaker 1: of their lives. Their mother is left alone, raising four
27:39
Speaker 1: boys while bouncing from place to place Arizona, California, always
27:46
Speaker 1: edging toward poverty, never far from collapse. The brothers will
27:51
Speaker 1: later speak of a childhood shaped by anger, a resentment
27:55
Speaker 1: that grew inside them. But Stephen seemed different. He did
28:01
Speaker 1: not lash out, he did not explode. Instead, he withdrew inward,
28:08
Speaker 1: quiet controlled. He thought in numbers, in details, in rules
28:14
Speaker 1: that could not be bent. By the mid nineteen seventies,
28:20
Speaker 1: he is drawn into the structure of federal service. His
28:23
Speaker 1: first job a mail carrier for the US Postal Service,
28:28
Speaker 1: the most ordinary of duties, measured in routes and schedules. Later,
28:34
Speaker 1: he shifts into auditing for the Internal Revenue Service, long
28:38
Speaker 1: days pouring over financial records, tracking decimals across pages, navigating
28:44
Speaker 1: the rigid order of tax law. In the nineteen eighties,
28:50
Speaker 1: he moves into defense contracting, still federal work, still inside
28:55
Speaker 1: the machinery of systems and rules. He handles money, paper, logistics.
29:02
Speaker 1: He builds a life within structures designed to keep chaos
29:05
Speaker 1: at bay, and then he walks away. He leaves public
29:12
Speaker 1: service behind and turns to private fortune. Real estate, apartment complexes,
29:19
Speaker 1: rental properties, small deals, quietly stacked until they form something larger.
29:26
Speaker 1: His empire grows in silence, one acquisition at a time.
29:37
Speaker 1: His success is patient, calculated, deliberate, and wealth brings freedom,
29:45
Speaker 1: freedom to gamble for more than twenty five years, casinos
29:54
Speaker 1: become the constant backdrop of Stephen Paddock's life. Not the
29:59
Speaker 1: table games feel with banter and bravado, not the spinning
30:03
Speaker 1: glamour of roulette wheels or blackjack hands. Paddock prefers the
30:07
Speaker 1: solitary glow of video poker machines. Hour after hour, day
30:13
Speaker 1: after day. He sits alone at a terminal. The screen flickers,
30:18
Speaker 1: the numbers churn, the rhythm is hypnotic. Sometimes he ventures
30:27
Speaker 1: into high stakes rooms, where the buy ins are thousands
30:30
Speaker 1: of dollars and a night's swing can be the difference
30:34
Speaker 1: between a small fortune gained or lost. To Paddock, gambling
30:39
Speaker 1: is not a thrill. It is mathematics, a cold calculation
30:44
Speaker 1: of probability, odds, and endurance. The casinos notice he becomes
30:50
Speaker 1: a familiar face, complimentary sweets, free meals, perks reserved for
30:56
Speaker 1: those who play big and play often. In the months
31:04
Speaker 1: leading up to October first reports suggest Paddock hit a streak.
31:09
Speaker 1: He walked away with roughly eight hundred sixty thousand dollars
31:13
Speaker 1: in winnings. For most gamblers, it would be life changing.
31:18
Speaker 1: For Paddock, it was just another transaction. By his sixties,
31:37
Speaker 1: he is living in Mesquite, Nevada, a quiet retirement community
31:42
Speaker 1: eighty miles northeast of Las Vegas. He shares the home
31:47
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend to neighbors. They are quiet, pleasant enough,
31:55
Speaker 1: He waves politely. He is seen loading his car sometimes traveling.
32:01
Speaker 1: Conversations are short. There are no loud arguments, no police visits,
32:06
Speaker 1: no signs of trouble at all. The picture is unremarkable.
32:12
Speaker 1: No criminal record, no documented history of violence, no extremist ties,
32:18
Speaker 1: no manifesto, no diary entries. Nothing from the outside. Stephen
32:26
Speaker 1: Paddock looks like any other retiree spending his final years
32:30
Speaker 1: in desert comfort, wealthy, private, ordinary. But beneath the stillness
32:38
Speaker 1: was something else. Paddock was not impulsive, he was not reckless.
32:44
Speaker 1: He was meticulous, methodical, capable of planning with extraordinary patients.
32:51
Speaker 1: And it was in that precision, in that silent, invisible darkness,
32:57
Speaker 1: that he began to construct something no one around him
33:00
Speaker 1: could see. Back in Las Vegas, the city is reeling.
33:31
Speaker 1: The strip, normally buzzing with neon lights, laughter and music,
33:35
Speaker 1: feels unrecognizably silent. As night turns to morning, the urgent
33:42
Speaker 1: search begins for answers and for the missing.
33:48
Speaker 13: Right now, We know that there is still a massive
33:51
Speaker 13: effort to reunite families with their loved ones. Many people
33:55
Speaker 13: have been able to contact them after the shooting. With
33:57
Speaker 13: that number of people injured up to five hundred, actually
34:01
Speaker 13: over five hundred people now.
34:04
Speaker 1: In hospitals and shelters across the city, families begin their search.
34:09
Speaker 1: They walked the halls, scanning faces, clinging to the fragile
34:13
Speaker 1: hope that a loved one might still be found. For
34:18
Speaker 1: some there is relief, were many others, there is only heartbreak.
34:24
Speaker 1: Among the wounded that night was Curtis Leoni, an off
34:28
Speaker 1: duty police officer. He was hit by gunfire, yet somehow survived.
34:38
Speaker 8: We were just enjoying the music and I heard a
34:42
Speaker 8: volley of gunfire, and I'm a police officer, and I
34:46
Speaker 8: recognized it as real gunshots. And I looked at her
34:48
Speaker 8: and I said, those sounded like real gunshots. People got
34:53
Speaker 8: up and started running again, and the shots started back up,
34:58
Speaker 8: and we were stuck out in the middle of nowhere,
35:01
Speaker 8: and I couldn't get up, and I could hear the
35:04
Speaker 8: shots flying all around us.
35:07
Speaker 1: And there was nothing we could do.
35:08
Speaker 8: And we just sat there hoping, and we weren't going
35:11
Speaker 8: to get killed that we weren't going to die, but.
35:13
Speaker 14: We actually had to put him on a metal barricade,
35:16
Speaker 14: one of the fences that are around, and we put
35:18
Speaker 14: him on that and at that time he's extreme amount
35:23
Speaker 14: of pain and trying to lift him around.
35:25
Speaker 8: To get him out.
35:27
Speaker 14: So so many people helped lift us. And then we
35:30
Speaker 14: ran across the area again because we had to go
35:34
Speaker 14: to the far left side to get out where there
35:35
Speaker 14: were ambulances were.
35:37
Speaker 8: And we got out there and.
35:38
Speaker 14: There were no ambulances because there were so many injured people.
35:42
Speaker 1: I'm mad at that guy.
35:43
Speaker 8: I'm mad, why would you do something like that?
35:46
Speaker 1: And just the whole situation.
35:48
Speaker 9: We're there to have a good time and something like
35:51
Speaker 9: this happens, and you know, our lives are changed forever
35:56
Speaker 9: for no reason, and that really makes me angry.
36:03
Speaker 1: In the days that follow, the city gathers for vigils,
36:07
Speaker 1: thousands standing shoulder to shoulder, candles in hand, names read
36:12
Speaker 1: aloud into the night, a community broken yet bound together
36:18
Speaker 1: in grief and solidarity. And then the funerals begin, one
36:48
Speaker 1: of them for Officer Charleston Hartfield, a thirty four year
36:53
Speaker 1: old Army veteran, a youth football coach and father of
36:57
Speaker 1: two hundreds to pay tribute the soldier police officer.
37:03
Speaker 12: You see his picture.
37:05
Speaker 1: His loss is devastating.
37:06
Speaker 13: Lads on him.
37:07
Speaker 15: This country, this community, this is the police department, our
37:11
Speaker 15: National Guard.
37:11
Speaker 1: We are suffering.
37:12
Speaker 8: Because of it.
37:22
Speaker 1: At a press conference, the Sheriff's voice is measured, but
37:26
Speaker 1: his eyes reveal the strain.
37:28
Speaker 4: Well, good evening. Obviously, I'm Sheriff Joe Lombardo with Clark County,
37:33
Speaker 4: but we know as Stephen Paddock is a man who
37:34
Speaker 4: spent decades acquiring weapons and AMMO and living a secret life,
37:40
Speaker 4: much of which will never be fully understood. He meticulously
37:45
Speaker 4: planned on the worst domestic attack in the United States history.
37:50
Speaker 4: It's troublesome that this individual was able to move this
37:54
Speaker 4: amount of gear into a hotel room unassisted. It's troublesome
37:59
Speaker 4: for the amount of stuff he had at both residents unassistant.
38:05
Speaker 4: So there's people that know this individual, there's people that
38:08
Speaker 4: can help us understand this individual.
38:10
Speaker 15: And we hope very much so to be able to
38:13
Speaker 15: provide concrete information to the public about why this happened,
38:17
Speaker 15: because that's what's on everyone's mind. Because to understand the
38:21
Speaker 15: why helps you deal with the tragedy that we've all
38:24
Speaker 15: faced and we've all faced it, so believe me, we
38:29
Speaker 15: want to know why.
38:33
Speaker 1: In the weeks that follow, the investigation begins in earnest.
38:37
Speaker 1: Agents scour hotel security footage, tracking Steven Paddock's every movement.
38:43
Speaker 1: They reconstruct his purchases, dozens of firearms, thousands of rounds
38:49
Speaker 1: of ammunition, specialized equipment. They study his final days inside
38:54
Speaker 1: the Mandalay Bay, his room transformed into an arsenal overlooking
38:59
Speaker 1: the concert grounds. They interview his girlfriend, who tells them
39:04
Speaker 1: she had no idea what he was planning. She thought
39:08
Speaker 1: he was kind, quiet, generous. His brothers appear on television,
39:14
Speaker 1: emotional and confused.
39:16
Speaker 16: This is what everybody's so scared about right now. When
39:20
Speaker 16: Steve can do this, we are in deep because there's
39:26
Speaker 16: just nothing there. You find me where someone.
39:31
Speaker 1: Who's like Steve does this.
39:35
Speaker 10: I hope the hell they find when they do the
39:39
Speaker 10: autopsy that there's a tumor in his head or something,
39:43
Speaker 10: because if they don't, we're all in trouble.
39:50
Speaker 1: Reporters travel to Paddock's home in Mesquite, Nevada. They knock
39:55
Speaker 1: on doors, hoping neighbors might offer clues. Some recall him
40:01
Speaker 1: as polite if distant, a man who kept mostly to himself.
40:06
Speaker 1: Others remember brief conversations, small talk about the weather or casinos,
40:12
Speaker 1: but nothing that hinted at the darkness ahead.
40:18
Speaker 2: And that's what is very concerning. Knowing that every time
40:21
Speaker 2: he would either come home or leave his house, he
40:25
Speaker 2: had to drive right by our house. And to be
40:28
Speaker 2: bringing that much ammunition and firepower and driving right by
40:33
Speaker 2: waving to him is very concerning. You would never expect
40:37
Speaker 2: him to be a person that would do what he
40:41
Speaker 2: did last night.
40:43
Speaker 3: It's hard to it's hard to even imagine that this
40:46
Speaker 3: happened in our little community.
40:48
Speaker 1: We're used to just like we were just doing.
40:50
Speaker 3: We were out for a walk just now, But we
40:53
Speaker 3: walk by the house his house the other day because
40:56
Speaker 3: that's what you do in this community, and you say
40:58
Speaker 3: hello to people in the community. You don't necessarily know them,
41:03
Speaker 3: because it is a kind of a snowbird people, kind
41:06
Speaker 3: of in and out kind of community. But everybody's friendly
41:10
Speaker 3: and you always feel like your neighbor will help you
41:13
Speaker 3: no matter what, whether you know them or not. It's
41:15
Speaker 3: just the kind of community that it is.
41:20
Speaker 1: On January eighteenth, twenty eighteen, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
41:24
Speaker 1: Department releases its preliminary report. It provides detail, it provides timelines,
41:32
Speaker 1: but it does not provide the answer everyone is searching
41:36
Speaker 1: for motive. The FBI proposes one theory that Paddock was
41:43
Speaker 1: driven by a desire for infamy, shaped by suicidal thoughts
41:48
Speaker 1: and a decline in his finances, but his family disputes this.
41:55
Speaker 1: In March twenty twenty three, newly released FBI documents add
41:59
Speaker 1: yet a layer. They suggest Paddock may have grown disillusioned
42:04
Speaker 1: with Las Vegas casinos, angry over what he saw as
42:09
Speaker 1: the mistreatment of high rollers like himself. Perhaps, they speculate
42:14
Speaker 1: the attack was an act of vengeance, but the Las
42:18
Speaker 1: Vegas Metropolitan Police dismiss this theory, standing firm on their
42:23
Speaker 1: conclusion the motive remains inconclusive. Some psychologists suggest something darker, that,
42:32
Speaker 1: as a wealthy older man who had already lived a
42:35
Speaker 1: life of material comfort, Paddock had grown bored. The thrill
42:40
Speaker 1: he once found in high stakes gambling was fading. The
42:44
Speaker 1: adremaline was gone. Perhaps he sought a greater rush, one
42:50
Speaker 1: so extreme that it could only be found in the
42:54
Speaker 1: act of unimaginable violence. One comparison is a specially the
43:04
Speaker 1: most dangerous game. A wealthy big game hunter, bored with
43:09
Speaker 1: killing animals, turns to a new sport. He lures shipwrecked
43:14
Speaker 1: sailors to his island, then hunts them down, believing humans
43:20
Speaker 1: to be the ultimate prey. For some, the echoes are chilling,
43:26
Speaker 1: a man with wealth, comfort and freedom seeking out the
43:30
Speaker 1: one risk he had never taken before, the killing of
43:34
Speaker 1: human beings. And yet for all the theories, for all the investigations,
43:41
Speaker 1: the truth remains just out of reach. The final report
43:48
Speaker 1: is released, the case is officially closed, and still the
43:53
Speaker 1: central question why Stephen Paddock opened fire on thousands of
43:58
Speaker 1: innocent people remains unanswered. For the survivors, the families, the
44:06
Speaker 1: city of Las Vegas, the mystery lingers like an open wound.
44:11
Speaker 1: What drove him? Why here? Why them? In the aftermath
44:25
Speaker 1: of the Las Vegas shooting, grief quickly turned to anger.
44:29
Speaker 1: The sheer scale of the violence, the thousands of rounds
44:33
Speaker 1: of ammunition, the calculate advantage point, the efficiency with which
44:38
Speaker 1: lives were ended, forced the nation to confront not just
44:42
Speaker 1: the tragedy itself, but how it had been made possible.
44:47
Speaker 1: Investigators revealed that Stephen Paddock had outfitted several of his
44:51
Speaker 1: AR fifteen style rifles with bump stocks. These aftermarket devices,
44:57
Speaker 1: which replace a rifle's standard stock, were marketed as legal accessories,
45:03
Speaker 1: clever engineering that skirted the line of what the law allowed.
45:07
Speaker 1: The mechanism harnesses the weapon's own recoil, bumping the trigger
45:12
Speaker 1: rapidly against the shooter's finger. The result is devastating. A
45:18
Speaker 1: semi automatic rifle, normally limited to one round per trigger pull,
45:23
Speaker 1: can mimic the rate of fully automatic fire as many
45:27
Speaker 1: as ninety rounds in just ten seconds from his perch
45:32
Speaker 1: in the Mandolay Bay. This meant Paddock could sweep the
45:36
Speaker 1: crowd with an unrelenting barrage, a storm of bullets so fast,
45:41
Speaker 1: so sustained that escape was almost impossible. Oh a revelation
45:51
Speaker 1: ignited outrage. To many, bump stocks were a glaring loophole
45:57
Speaker 1: and end run around the spirit of federal recas restrictions
46:01
Speaker 1: that dated back to the nineteen thirties, a workaround hiding
46:05
Speaker 1: in plain sight. To others, however, they were simply another
46:11
Speaker 1: tool for sports shooting, a novelty, a piece of equipment
46:16
Speaker 1: that by itself had no moral dimension. Why, they argued,
46:22
Speaker 1: should the actions of one man strip millions of gun
46:25
Speaker 1: owners of their rights because you're here.
46:28
Speaker 15: To buy a rifle today. Are you not put off
46:31
Speaker 15: by what you've.
46:31
Speaker 7: Seen in Las Vegas? No, not put off. It's the uh,
46:37
Speaker 7: it's not the weapon's fault. It's the person that's holding
46:40
Speaker 7: the weapon, which a lot of people don't understand. They
46:44
Speaker 7: want to blame something else and not take the responsibility
46:48
Speaker 7: of what their actions are.
46:50
Speaker 6: I think they've done too much as it is. You know,
46:53
Speaker 6: you can't They've made the Constitution in a second Amendment.
46:57
Speaker 6: I mean that's you can't change something that's been enacted
47:02
Speaker 6: for you know, since seventeen seventy six.
47:06
Speaker 1: The problem is bad people.
47:09
Speaker 8: I mean, it's a people problem. It's not a gun problem.
47:18
Speaker 1: What we want. And so once again America found itself divided,
47:27
Speaker 1: grappling with the same questions it had faced after so
47:30
Speaker 1: many other mass shootings. Protests filled the streets. Advocates demanded
47:36
Speaker 1: immediate action, carrying signs with the names of the dead.
47:40
Speaker 1: Gun rights groups countered warning of a slippery slope if
47:45
Speaker 1: bump stocks were banned, what would come next? Magazines rifles themselves.
47:53
Speaker 1: The debate raged in Congress, on cable news, in town halls,
47:58
Speaker 1: across the country. In twenty eighteen, legislation was finally passed.
48:04
Speaker 11: Stocks now officially banned, the Trump administration rolling out the
48:08
Speaker 11: new federal regulation this morning. The devices make it easier
48:11
Speaker 11: to fire rounds from a semi automatic weapon by harnessing
48:14
Speaker 11: the gun's recoil to bump the trigger faster.
48:19
Speaker 1: For a brief moment, it seemed a line had been drawn,
48:23
Speaker 1: but history would prove that line was fragile. In twenty
48:28
Speaker 1: twenty four, after years of legal challenges, the ban was overturned.
48:34
Speaker 1: The courts ruled that the government had exceeded its authority.
48:38
Speaker 1: Bump stocks were once again legal.
49:11
Speaker 14: God nor to another storm.
49:18
Speaker 1: Just over a year after Las Vegas. In November twenty eighteen,
49:23
Speaker 1: gunfire erupted inside the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California.
49:29
Speaker 1: It was college night, hundreds of young people dancing, laughing,
49:34
Speaker 1: packed shoulder to shoulder. Twelve people were killed that night.
49:41
Speaker 1: Among them was a twenty seven year old man named
49:44
Speaker 1: tel Orfanos, who had survived the rote ninety one harvest
49:48
Speaker 1: festival in Las Vegas. He had escaped one massacre, only
49:54
Speaker 1: to lose his life in another. The tragedy hit like
50:03
Speaker 1: a cruel echo. It seemed to collapse, the distance between shootings,
50:10
Speaker 1: blurring them together into a continuous line of grief and outrage,
50:16
Speaker 1: a cycle that felt inescapable. As vigils turned into marches,
50:23
Speaker 1: and marches turned into more vigils, the same arguments repeated,
50:29
Speaker 1: the same wounds reopened, the same cycle played out over
50:36
Speaker 1: and over. Ooh, ooh, ooh,