The Latest: Shooter’s partner in Philippines during attack

The Latest: Shooter’s partner in Philippines during attack

- in Media Center
1309
Comments Off on The Latest: Shooter’s partner in Philippines during attack

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest on the mass shooting in Las Vegas (all times local)

An official in the Philippines says the Las Vegas shooter’s girlfriend was in that country at the time of the attack.

Marilou Danley arrived in Los Angeles on a flight from Manila Tuesday night and was met by FBI agents.

Philippines immigration spokeswoman Antonette Mangrobang said Wednesday that Danley had arrived in the Philippines on Sept. 25 on a flight from Hong Kong. That was nearly a week before her boyfriend, Stephen Paddock, killed 59 people at a country music festival.

The Clark County Sheriff has said Danley is considered a “person of interest” in the investigation.

Mangrobang said local immigration authorities have been cooperating with U.S. officials on the investigation.

A law enforcement official says the girlfriend of the Las Vegas shooter has arrived in the U.S. and was met by federal agents at the airport.

The official said Marilou Danley arrived at Los Angeles International Airport Tuesday night and was met by FBI agents.

The official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The Clark County Sheriff has said Danley is considered a “person of interest” after her boyfriend, Stephen Paddock, opened fire from his hotel room, killing 59 people at a musical performance.

A Las Vegas hospital says another person has died from wounds suffered in the weekend shooting.

Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center said the victim died Tuesday afternoon. No details about the person were released and the hospital said it still has 31 people in critical condition.

The additional fatality kept the death toll at 59 after Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg revised his earlier count of victims downward by one.

The largest mass shooting in U.S. history was carried out late Sunday by Stephen Paddock, who opened fire on a concert crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino and hotel. He killed himself as police arrived outside his door.

Authorities have released police body camera video that showed the chaos of the Las Vegas mass shooting as officers tried to figure out the location of the gunman and shuttle people to safety.

Amid sirens and volleys of gunfire, people yelled, “They’re shooting right at us,” while officers shouted, “Go that way!” Officials played the video at a news conference Tuesday.

Stephen Paddock killed nearly 60 people and wounded hundreds more as he opened fire from the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel-casino onto a crowd at a country music concert. He killed himself before police stormed his hotel room.

Authorities say the Las Vegas shooter put a camera inside the peephole of his hotel room to see down the hallway as he opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers.

Undersheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters Tuesday that Stephen Paddock also set up two cameras in the hallway outside his room at the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel so he could watch law enforcement or security approach.

He says Paddock fired on and off for nine to 11 minutes and unleashed a dozen or so volleys. He says the first call about shots fired came in at 10:08 p.m. Sunday and the gunfire stopped at 10:19 p.m.

Federal officials say the Las Vegas shooter had devices attached to 12 weapons that allow semiautomatic rifles to mimic fully automatic gunfire.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent in Charge Jill Schneider also told reporters Tuesday that Stephen Paddock had nearly 50 guns in three locations.

She said he had a combination of rifles, shotguns and pistols.

The gun attachment that mimics automatic gunfire is a little-known device called a “bump stock” that was not widely sold. The stocks have been around for less than a decade, and Schneider said officials determined they were legal.

Florida residents who mourned the loss of loved ones following a mass shooting at a gay nightclub last year have held a vigil for the recent Las Vegas massacre.

About 200 people gathered for a vigil in downtown Orlando Tuesday evening. Organizers say they want to show solidarity with those affected Sunday evening when a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel onto a crowd of more than 22,000 at a country music festival. Authorities say 59 were killed, and more than 500 were wounded. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, killed himself.

On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 58 others at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Mateen was killed during a standoff with police. It had been the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history until Sunday.

A U.S. official says Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock had reported at least a dozen gambling transactions of $10,000 or more in the past several weeks.

The official also said Tuesday that Paddock had transferred $100,000 to the Philippines in the days before the attack that killed 59 people at a country music concert.

The official said Investigators are still attempting to trace that money.

The official, who was briefed by law enforcement, wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The person also said investigators are focusing more attention on what the girlfriend of Paddock may have known about the attack.

Federal investigators are expected to question Marilou Danley when she returns to the U.S. on Wednesday.

Off-duty Las Vegas area firefighters who were attending the country music festival when a gunman opened fire on the crowd say they immediately started setting up makeshift triage operations with concertgoers bringing them gunshot victims.

Firefighters Benjamin Kole and Anthony Robone say Sunday night’s concert suddenly transformed into a horrific massacre.

Kole says victims’ injuries ranged from bullet wounds to sprained ankles.

Most of those who were shot were hit in their heads or upper bodies. High-rolling gambler and retired accountant Stephen Paddock was shooting down on them from a 32nd floor hotel room.

Robone says he taught people with no medical training how to use belts as tourniquets to stop victims from bleeding. Other people used poles and tarps make gurneys.

Kole and Robone described their experiences to reporters on Tuesday.

Union officials say 12 off-duty firefighters were shot while attending a country music festival in Las Vegas, including two who were wounded while administering CPR to gunshot victims.

Angelo Aragon, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Nevada, said Tuesday that all the firefighters survived their wounds.

Clark County Fire Chief Greg Cassell says none of the 108 on-duty firefighters from around the region who tended the wounded was injured.

He says one of the wounded off-duty firefighters was from Las Vegas. Others were from places around the country.

Aragon says several of them described sending loved ones away from the scene as they set up triage stations and taught concertgoers to help provide emergency care such using belts as tourniquets.

Anthony Robone of the Henderson fire department said he did first aid on his older brother Nicholas who was shot in the upper chest. The brother is in stable condition.

Former first lady Michelle Obama is expressing her condolences over the mass shooting that left 59 people dead at a concert in Las Vegas.

She reflected Tuesday on how difficult it was for her and her husband to try to comfort the nation when such attacks occurred.

Obama said her heart goes out to the victims and their families because too much of the job of being commander in chief is overseeing that kind of loss and not having a solution to offer the families.

Obama was interviewed by television producer Shonda Rhimes at the Pennsylvania Conference for Women in Philadelphia.

Some of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history occurred during former President Barack Obama’s eight-year term, including the 2016 attack at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub that left 49 people dead and the 2012 massacre at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six adults.

The company that owns the Mandalay Bay casino-resort is donating $3 million to help victims of the shooting in Las Vegas.

MGM Resorts International on Tuesday announced the donation.

Gunman Stephen Craig Paddock opened fire from a room at Mandalay Bay on a crowd of concertgoers.

Mandalay Bay chief executive officer Jim Murren said in a statement the company hopes the donation will make a difference to those who were harmed and those who are left behind.

He says the company also wants to recognize first responders.

The company says the money will fund humanitarian assistance to victims and organizations that help those who are first on the scene to assist in traumatic events.

Longtime Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton and his wife donated $100,000 to a victims’ fund.

Authorities say the gunman in the Las Vegas shooting put a camera in a food service cart outside his hotel room.

Sheriff Joe Lombardo also said at a news conference Tuesday that he believes shooter Stephen Craig Paddock had set up cameras inside and outside his room to see if anyone was coming to take him into custody. He did not release further details.

Paddock killed 59 people and injured more than 500 others when he opened fire Sunday night on an outdoor country music concert from a 32nd floor hotel tower.

Hospital officials say 50 people remain in critical condition

Authorities say the gunman in the Las Vegas shooting set up cameras inside and outside the hotel room where he opened fire on the crowd at a country music concert.

Sheriff Joe Lombardo said at a news conference Tuesday that he believes shooter Stephen Craig Paddock set up the cameras to see if anyone was coming to take him into custody. He did not release further details.

The sheriff also said authorities had completed their investigation at the gunman’s property in Reno, finding five handguns, two shotguns and a plethora of ammunition.

Authorities say Paddock killed 59 people and injured more than 500 others when he opened fire Sunday night on an outdoor country music concert from a 32nd floor hotel tower.

Hospital officials say 50 people remain in critical condition after being wounded.

The Las Vegas gunman who killed nearly 60 people at a country music festival worked as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, an IRS agent and in an auditing department over a 10-year period.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Personnel Management told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Stephen Paddock’s employment included about two years as a mail carrier from 1976 to 1978.

After that, he worked as an agent for the Internal Revenue Service for six years until 1984. And then he worked a defense auditing job for about 18 months.

The information helped complete the timeline surrounding the 64-year-old Paddock’s life. He graduated from college in 1977 from Cal State Northridge and also worked for a defense contractor in the late 1980s.

A concertgoer from Washington state says he hid under bleachers with his wife when shots rang out in Las Vegas and victims started falling to the ground.

Jeff Bannerman told KOMO News Radio “just when you thought the thing was over, the rat-a-tat-tat would start again. So, we just absolutely were paralyzed underneath the bleachers.”

A man in front of Bannerman was shot and a garbage can that Bannerman had been leaning on was hit.

Bannerman and his wife Deanna joined others trying to help victims who could not move, dragging them “wherever you could to get them out of the way.”

He says he had blood on his hands and shoes and one of the women he tried to help “didn’t make it.”

More than a dozen investigators, most wearing jackets marked “FBI” and all in blue protective booties, arrived in unmarked sedans and entered the concert site Tuesday to pick through the scene for clues.

The site inspection was visible by The Associated Press videographers from the 35th floor of the Mandalay Bay tower — three floors above the suite where Stephen Craig Paddock launched his barrage and later killed himself.

Authorities say 59 people were killed and more than 500 were injured Sunday night.

Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt compared the scene with a war zone. Laxalt is a former U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps member.

“Shoes, baby strollers, chairs, sunglasses, purses. The whole field was just littered with things,” Laxalt said Monday. “There were blood stains everywhere.”

Hospital officials say Tuesday that at least 45 people remain in critical condition after being wounded at a mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival on Sunday.

Sunrise Hospital has 33 people and University Medical Center has 12 people still in critical condition as of Tuesday morning.

Authorities say Stephen Craig Paddock killed 59 people and injured more than 500 others when he opened fire Sunday night on an outdoor country music concert from a 32nd floor hotel tower.

A motive is unknown.

At Sunrise, a total of 68 people remain hospitalized out of the 214 initially admitted. Officials say 15 people have died there.

Officials say a total of 60 people remain hospitalized out of the 104 who were taken to University Medical. Four have died.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has singled out a Philadelphia financial planner as a hero during Sunday night’s mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Sanders told reporters Monday that Mike McGarry lay atop younger people at the country music concert targeted by a gunman in a nearby hotel.

McGarry told KYW-TV that he did it because, “I’m 53, they’re in their 20s. I lived a decent life so far, I’d rather them live longer than me.”

McGarry didn’t realize he’d been praised nationally because he was on a flight home when Sanders addressed the media. He says his wife, a registered nurse, was more of a hero than him — putting a tourniquet on one of those wounded.

McGarry says, “We’re just trying to help other people. I don’t think I did anything spectacular.”

Headliner Jason Aldean took to social media to speak to fans a day after a gunman opened fire during his set at a country music festival.

Aldean wrote on Instagram that his “heart aches for the victims and their families.”

Sixty-four-year-old Stephen Paddock rained bullets down on the tens of thousands of people who were watching Aldean perform. The attack killed 59 and wounded 527.

The country star pleaded for people to stand together and “stop the hate.”

Authorities have not yet disclosed a motive for the attack.

Hospitals were overflowing with victims of a gunman who fired on a concert from the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel.

Emergency personnel scrambled to deal with the aftermath of a Sunday attack by 64-year-old retired accountant Stephen Paddock that would kill 59 and wound 527.

Doctors say some of the gunshot wounds were so severe they knew they had come from high-powered weapons not usually seen on the street.

Concert-goers described scenes of horror and heroism.

One man grasped the hand of a dying stranger to comfort him as he died, unable to pull himself away despite the danger.

Many carried the wounded to their own cars to drive to the hospital where they waited in lines of ambulances at emergency rooms.

AP