The Las Vegas Massacre

By: Mariana Lopez    Feb. 15, 2018

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The night of Sunday, October 1, 2017, a gunman, later identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, opened fire on a crowd of people attending a Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. This unfortunate incident is considered the deadliest mass shooting executed by anyone in the United States.

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At approximately 10:05 pm, on the final night of the festival, while Jason Aldean was the last performance, Paddock began firing into the crowd from his suite on the 32nd floor at the Mandalay Bay hotel, overlooking the crowd of people gathered at the concert. Paddock used a

hammer to break the window where

he was positioned. He first

began by shooting single shots

before escalating to simultaneous

shots. People initially mistook

the shots for fireworks but

ultimately realized that they

were in grave danger. There was

nothing to hide behind, as there

were mostly only tents set up at

the festival, so it was essentially just a big open field into which Paddock was shooting at. Initially, authorities couldn’t quite locate where the shooting was originating from, until they spotted a little flare coming from the window of Paddock’s suite. The shooting lasted for about ten minutes, stopping at 10:15 pm. He fired roughly 1,000 rounds within that time frame. Stephen Paddock was discovered dead by authorities in his suite by the time they had arrived. It is believed that he had killed himself. He killed at least 58 people and injured hundreds more.

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Following the attack, police searched Paddock’s home in Mesquite, Nevada, to possibly discover a motive for the attack. Authorities expected to encounter Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, but discovered that she had left the country and was in Tokyo. She then immediately became a person of interest. Paddock had been planning the attack long before it took place, considering the fact that he had begun purchasing and accumulating large quantities of ammunition some time before the attack, and purchased at least 20 firearms over the course of a few years. He had no history of any mental illness, no concerning criminal record, and was a very quiet man, so he wasn’t suspected of such actions. It was shocking to his friends and family when they learned he was responsible for the attack, claiming that he wasn’t the type of person who would do anything of the sort. Paddock had been staying at the Mandalay Bay hotel since September 25, 2017, armed with approximately 23 firearms, undetected.

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This event was an atrocious tragedy in which an abhorrent man took the lives of many innocent and vulnerable people. This heinous crime will permanently blemish the journey of mankind.