LOS ANGELES, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Authorities on Friday released a preliminary investigative report on the Las Vegas mass shooting incident last October, the deadest one in the modern history of the United States. However, the document did not reveal any motives behind the massacre.
At a press conference for the report, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told reporters that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was "going against normal protocols" by issuing the report, due to public interest in the case.
The 81-page document includes an overview of the incident, a sequence of events leading up to the attack, a brief profile of Stephen Paddock who opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, his planning of the attack, photographs from the scene as well as indicators of intent.
MORE INFO ON VICTIMS
In the paper, the information of all 58 people killed in the bloody shooting was listed. For the first time, the authorities determined a total of 851 people were injured, including 422 by gunfire. Meanwhile, all 22,000 people attending the festival that night are recognized as victims.
Paddock acted alone in the attack, according to the report. The police outlined a timeline of Paddock's activities almost every hour, since he checked into room 32-135 of the Mandalay Bay at 15:33 p.m. (GMT 2230) on Sept. 25, 2017.
Lombardo said four laptops and three cellphones were recovered in the rooms that Paddock stayed in. The data on them offered some evidence. Investigators also chased 1,965 leads in the case, reviewed more than 21,000 hours of footage and issued 1,062 legal notices.
It's still believed that Paddock was the only shooter at the scene, Lombardo said at the press conference, adding that police do not anticipate charges against Paddock's girlfriend Marilou Danley, who was questioned in the initial aftermath of the attack.
But he disclosed that the FBI is investigating an individual of federal interest related to the case. Charges could be brought within 60 days.
MORE INFO ON WHO THE SHOOTER WAS
Friday's report shed a little more light on how Paddock planned the attack and who the murderer was.
The report said "several hundred images of child pornography" were recovered on Paddock's laptop computer. His brother was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography after the mass shooting.
As a gambler known to bet tens of thousands of dollars at a time and play at numerous casinos, Paddock was completely funded by his gambling habits and real estate transactions. He had paid off all his gambling debts before the shooting.
On top of that, the report indicated that Paddock maybe had some mental problems, as he claimed multiple times to friends or family that he "felt ill, in pain or fatigued." His physician described him as "odd" in behaviors with "little emotion shown." He refused anti-depressants but accepted prescriptions ordered for anxiety.
The report cited Danley's words as saying that Paddock's demeanor had changed over the last year. He had become "distant," and their relationship was no longer intimate. Moreover, the 64-year-old purchased 55 firearms between October 2016 and September 2017.
Danley also told policemen that Paddock behaved strangely during a stay at the Mandalay Bay a month before the shooting. He specifically requested rooms that overlooked the Las Vegas Village. When they stayed in room 60-235, "Paddock was constantly looking out the windows of the room that overlooked the venue. Paddock would move from window to window looking at the site from different angles," she said.
WHAT HE MIGHT HAVE GOOGLED
Google search history in an HP laptop showed Paddock researched other large-scale venues, including locations in Boston, Los Angeles and San Diego, the report said. One Google query was "how crowded does Santa Monica Beach get." Other queries include "biggest open air concert venues in U.S.," "open air concert venue," "SWAT Las Vegas" and "do police use explosives."
Paddock also googled "How tall is Mandalay Bay" by his Dell laptop, the report said.
The KTLA news channel speculated that Paddock may have used the height of the hotel to calculate the trajectory, since the only piece of paper in the suite contained calculations the gunman made to determine how far his bullets would drop based on the height of his room, as well as the distance between himself and the venue.
On Thursday night, a U.S. congressman told Fox News he received what he believed to be "credible evidence of a possible terrorist nexus" to the Las Vegas shooting incident.
"Recently, I have been made aware of what I believe to be credible evidence or credible information regarding potential terrorist infiltration through the southern border regarding this incident," Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania Scott Perry told "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
Catherine Lombardo, an attorney for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting, also appeared on the program. She asked Perry to give more evidence. "Unless you have specific evidence, it seems a bit irresponsible to make that allegation or make that assertion," she said.
