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Confusion, Then a Tumble Into Chaos at Concert Russia Exploited Ad ABCDE Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington. K SU V1 V2 V3 V4 Sunny 76/56 • Tomorrow: Sunny 79/60 B8 Democracy Dies in Darkness TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2017 . $2 MORE THAN 500 hurt as gunman opens fire on police struggle to discern motive of country music festival from hotel window shooter with no record or terrorism ties 59 die in Las Vegas attack THE SCENE BY LYNH BUI, MATT ZAPOTOSKY, DEVLIN BARRETT Confusion, then AND MARK BERMAN a tumble into las vegas — Perched in his suite at a high-rise hotel overlooking chaos at concert the Las Vegas Strip, a 64-year-old retiree with no real criminal his- BY MICHAEL LYLE, tory and no known affiliations HEATHER LONG with terrorist groups rained bul- AND MARC FISHER lets down into a crowd at a country music festival Sunday, killing at las vegas — A glitch in the sound least 59 people and injuring hun- system. Glass shattering. Fire- dreds more in the deadliest mass works. Twenty-two thousand mu- shooting in modern American his- sic fans absorbed the sounds of tory. terror and searched for alternative The attack, explanations. Then, as the shots at least initially, kept on coming, they saw the was as inexpli- truth. cable as it was They saw the blood. They saw horrifying. Law people fall. They saw the country enforcement music star flee from the stage. officials said They saw what they had to do. they could not They ran. They crouched down. immediately They fell on top of their daughters tell what drove Paddock and their sons and their partners. Stephen Pad- Sandra Galvan said she dock to fire at thousands of unsus- “thought it was glass. Like some- pecting concertgoers from the one dropped some glass.” 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Her friend Melissa Ayala heard Resort and Casino before killing people say it was just fireworks. himself. Then Galvan saw a man on the Authorities said a sweep of law ground, bleeding. Two women enforcement databases showed stood over him crying and scream- that Paddock had no known run- ing. A fresh round of rapid-fire ins with police, and — despite the pops. DAVID BECKER/GETTY IMAGES Islamic State’s repeated claims — Galvan, Ayala and Shami Espi- investigators could not find any noza had planned this girlfriends’ connections to international ter- getaway from Orange County, THE WORST MASS SHOOTINGS IN MODERN-DAY U.S. At least 59 killed in Sunday’s Las Vegas shooting rorist groups. Paddock was a son Calif., to hear their favorite coun- 49 killed at Pulse, a nightclub in Orlando of a notorious bank robber, and his try bands at the Route 91 Harvest own crime demonstrated some so- festival on the Las Vegas Strip. It 17 killed, including an unborn baby, 32 killed at Virginia Tech phisticated planning. had gone beautifully. They at University of Texas Tower Police said he had stayed in the danced. They laughed so much, 0 large hotel suite for several days Espinoza said, “our abs hurt. We 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 and had aroused no suspicion, didn’t have a care in the world.” even though he brought with him Now, they had one care only. At least 30 people injured an arsenal of 23 guns — their They ran. calibers ranging from .223 to .308, Note: Death tolls include victims killed by shooters within a day of the main shooting, as well as people who were injured and later died. On Sunday night, just after 10, Death tolls do not include shooters. Information is from public mass shootings in which four or more people were killed, excluding gang some with scopes — authorities SCENE CONTINUED ON A6 killings, shootings that began as robberies and killings that involved only the shooter’s family. said. One of the weapons he appar- More than 500 people injured in ently used in the attack was an Sources: Mother Jones; Grant Duwe, author of “Mass Murder in the United States: A History”; Washington Post research Sunday’s Las Vegas shooting AK-47-type rifle, with a stand to steady it for shooting, people fa- THE GUN CACHE miliar with the case said. He fired, without warning, from an elevat- ed position on an open-air venue, Arsenal and high THE SHOOTER leaving his victims few options to avoid harm. perch made this “I can’t get into the mind of a Retiree with money to burn was a gambler and always on the move psychopath,” said Sheriff Joseph attack so lethal Lombardo, head of the Las Vegas BY BARBARA LISTON, police department, which is lead- BY MICHAEL S. ROSENWALD, SANDHYA SOMASHEKHAR, ing the investigation. DEVLIN BARRETT AARON C. DAVIS Investigators Monday searched AND ALEX HORTON AND WILLIAM WAN Paddock’s home in Mesquite, Nev., and another piece of property he Stephen Paddock’s lethal attack orlando — He liked to bet big, owned, and they hoped to review on a Las Vegas country music festi- wagering tens of thousands of surveillance footage and other val Sunday night was distin- dollars in a sitting. He owned electronic tools to determine how guished from most mass shootings homes in four states but pre- and why Paddock perpetrated the by two features: the size of the ferred staying in casino hotels, unprecedented massacre. arsenal he smuggled into the Man- sometimes for weeks at a time, as Among the questions they dalay Bay Resort and Casino and he worked the gambling ma- have: how a former accountant the great height from which he chines. with a penchant for high-stakes shot. He grew up the son of a LAS VEGAS CONTINUED ON A8 With a cache of 23 firearms, convicted bank robber who was most of them powerful, Paddock, constantly running from the law. ‘It’s just incredibly surreal’ 64, smashed the windows of his But in his own life, Stephen Loved ones tell the stories of lives 32nd-floor hotel room and then, Paddock, 64, had kept his nose that were suddenly lost. A10 from high above the Las Vegas clean until Sunday night, when Strip, sprayed bullets down on he suddenly unleashed a ‘Answers do not come easy’ 20,000 people listening to country firestorm of bullets from his Trump asks Americans to look to music star Jason Aldean. casino hotel room, killing at least faith, family and values. A12 One of the weapons Paddock 59 people and injuring more apparently used in the deadliest than 500 more on the Las Vegas More shootings, little movement mass shooting in modern U.S. his- Strip. Recent rampages haven’t deterred tory was an AK-47-type rifle, with a “If you told me an asteroid fell GOP efforts to loosen gun laws. A11 stand to steady it for firing, accord- into Earth, it would mean the ing to people familiar with the case. TOP PHOTO BY DAVID BECKER/GETTY IMAGES; ABOVE BY JOHN LOCHER/ASSOCIATED PRESS same to me. There’s absolutely no Guns loom large in Va. election Investigators believe at least one TOP: People attending the Route 91 Harvest country music festival scramble for cover after a sense, no reason he did this,” his One candidate wants more limits; of the guns functioned as if it were gunman opened fire from a suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in brother Eric Paddock said in an other says not time to talk policy. B1 fully automatic and are now work- Las Vegas. ABOVE: Drapes billow out from the windows apparently broken out by Stephen interview outside his home in ing to determine whether he modi- Paddock, a 64-year-old retiree, before he began shooting from a large cache of weapons. SHOOTER CONTINUED ON A7 The politics of ‘don’t politicize’ fied it or others to be capable of In the wake of tragedy, the phrase ARSENAL CONTINUED ON A8 is often just a placeholder. C1 Russia exploited ad tool tailored for corporate America Redskins buckle late, fall to Kansas City BY ELIZABETH DWOSKIN, online. The Russians exploited Jordan Reed and the Redskins CRAIG TIMBERG this system by creating English- Facebook service was made it interesting, forging a AND ADAM ENTOUS language sites and Facebook used by operatives to pages that closely mimicked late tie, before giving up nine san francisco — Russian oper- target voters in U.S. those created by U.S. political ac- points in the final minute and atives set up an array of mislead- tivists. losing at Kansas City, 29­20, to ing Web sites and social media The Web sites and Facebook fall to 2­2 on the season. More pages to identify American voters pages displayed ads or other mes- susceptible to propaganda, then eign meddling in the U.S. election. sages focused on such hot-button coverage in Sports, D1. used a powerful Facebook tool to The tactic resembles what issues as illegal immigration, Af- repeatedly send them messages American businesses and politi- rican American political activism designed to influence their politi- cal campaigns have been doing in and the rising prominence of Media confusion over Tom Petty cal behavior, say people familiar recent years to deliver messages Muslims in the United States. The News organizations take back with the investigation into for- to potentially interested people FACEBOOK CONTINUED ON A19 reports of the singer’s death. C1 RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST DAILY CODE CONTENT © 2017 BUSINESS NEWS.............A18 OPINION PAGES..............A24 OBITUARIES......................B5 TELEVISION ...................... C4 Printed using recycled fiber 3 5 1 3 The Washington Post COMICS ............................ C6 LOTTERIES........................B3 SPORTS............................D1 WORLD NEWS.................A14 Details, B2 ! Year 140, No.
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