Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of The Casual criminalist as always hello there I'm your host Simon YMCA one of my writers in this case George thank you George has written me a script Las Vegas shooting America's worst mass shooting this is uh this was this was a 2017 six years ago I believe and it's one of those moments where it's just so bad and so beyond anything that's come before it that you just you see it in the news and you're like I'm witnessing a moment in history sort of I think I mean it's different obviously but I think back on 9 11 in the same way and seeing that in the in the news and I think I was 13 at the time 14. and it's just like whoa I'm seeing history I'm seeing one of the most important moments in history unfold on the television and it's weird being a part of that and I remember seeing the news of the Las Vegas shooting and feeling the same way and thinking like this is a big deal this is a lot more than normal and hopefully this will change something I'm not sure if it did because there's still mass shootings I you know there's been nothing this big since but surely it's only a matter of time I don't I don't know and I remember this guy had like a homemade automatic gun or something he'd managed to take like a gun and make it automatic somehow using a modified stock or something like that it's just like crazy that this this can happen anyway obviously we're gonna dive in this is probably gonna be a bit of a rough one so let's jump into it if you're new here the form of the show is I've not read this before uh we're gonna explore it together so so let's jump in [Music] it's hard to imagine a worse crime than a mass shooting the epitome of Senseless violence they're horrific and barbaric Affairs in which lives are ended wholesale without warning without reason without restraint but even this doesn't quite convey correctly there is something about such crimes and the way they transform ordinary locations the kind usually typified by peace tranquility and above all else happiness into scenes of Unforgettable tragedy that makes them stinging away that other crime simply can't yeah I I agree it's kind of just one of those things where you're like hey I could just be in a supermarket I could just be at work not the sort of place we'd ever expect a crime and then just for that to be turned into just something so criminal it's just it's yeah I mean what other words are there to describe it there are no words regressively America isn't all too familiar acquaintance with such violent incidents be it the Sandy Hook shooting where 26 lives including those of 20 children were ended in the corridors of an elementary preschool or the Pulse Nightclub Massacre where 49 innocent LGBT people fell victim to hatred and bigotry the incidents have become an all too familiar feature of the nation's news cycle I couldn't believe how many mass shootings there are or like just shootings in general there's a whole Wikipedia page of it and I thought all these are things happen every couple of years but those are only the big ones the small ones of like four or five people they happen with shocking regularity America but even amongst this Lonesome litany one stands out Above the Rest for its calculated brutality the callousness of its execution and above all else the sheer number of lives that it claimed the Las Vegas shooting of October 1 2017. here in the heart of the city's vibrant strip a music festival and the hotel overlooking it became the tragic setting for the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history with over 60 innocent lives lost on over 800 people injured the tragedy left an indelible scar on the face of a nation and forever darkened a city that previously had been known the world over its glittering lights high stakes entertainment and unending revelry this is the story of that tragedy and they've warned everybody this is a heavy one the shooting it all began at the Mandalay Bay Hotel when security officer Jesus Campos I was out about patrolling its quiet corridors campus was no stranger to the job and for him his daily March around the hotel had become ritualistic checking doors to make sure they were secure identifying safety hazards and occasionally stopping to exchange pleasantries with guests these were the bread and butter regularities of his profession certainly this is not what I would call Adrenaline pumping but little did he know a disturbance most wicked was about to change that at 9 18 PM A call came out to campus over his radio an alarm was blaring out in a suite on the 32nd Floor and as the hotel had been unable to raise the occupants with its internal telephone it fell to Campos he was only two floors down to head up and check it out this was no cause for campus to worry however at least not yet such alarms were routine things and they occurred many times throughout the day typically it was something asinine someone smoking in their room and tripping the fire alarm a Tipsy guest getting lost and staggering through a fire door something like that but as Campos ascended to the 32nd Floor he began to see sign finds that the matter at hand was far from routine his first clue being that the door that led to the hallway from the stairwell had been secured shut given that this was a heavy fire door intended to stay unlocked in all situations barring emergencies this made Campos raise an eyebrow it had to have been done intentionally there was no way a rogue child or drunken staggerer would have been able to accidentally lock it shut its mechanism was just too substantial but still despite his initial Intrigue his mind raised no alarm Bells after all the situation he was stumbling into was so unusual so unexpected so evil how could he have been expected to have any other response unable to open the door Campos headed back down the stairs and instead used a guest elevator to reach his destination a route that he did not find obstructed soon enough he found himself at the sweet in question sweet 32-125 and he found himself greeted by another strange site someone had screwed an L bracket between the door and its frame securing it tight sensing something weird was a foot he knocked on the door and when he received no answer he got on his radio and summoned and engineered to help him get the door open pacing down the hallway as he talked as he put down his radio he heard the muffled Echoes of a very loud almost industrial sound coming from inside the suite it was unclear what it was but given its volume and rapidity almost very like a large power drill he headed back over to investigate once again he pressed his ear to the door but whatever sound it was it was well enough muffled by the luxury suites extensive soundproofing that he simply couldn't place it he remained there pressing his ear against the door as he pondered when suddenly the penny dropped it was gunfire very fast very rapid thunderously loud gunfire instantly his fight or flight Instax kicked in and he dived the cover in an Alcove between Suites 122 and 124. unfortunately he had him in fast enough as the very instant he began to die at the cover of ferocious volley penetrated the door striking Camp was in his left leg mercifully his wounds were minor the great mass of the fireproof door had reduced the velocity of the round so much that made his injuries minimal minimal enough for him to believe that he had only been hit with something small like a BB gun or a 22 caliber rifle so with himself say for now he did the only thing he could think do in that situation kept his head down and tried to raise the alarm over the radio yeah that makes sense I mean cool the police get them up there because right now he's just like there's a Madman in the room with a gun why would he have any suspicions that he's about to blow out a window and start shooting people in a crowd below right because if I remember this correctly there's a large crowd at a concert and this madman's shooting them from a 32 story 32nd story window he'd have no reason to suspect that he just probably thinks there's a Madman in the room with a gun who's just in there and it'd be like cool we got the police here there'll be a negotiator and we'll get him out of there or we'll just raid in and shoot him he wouldn't have any reason to think that he wouldn't like you'd think why doesn't he go in there and stop the shooting because he doesn't know he doesn't think there is any shooting he just thinks he's shooting at him even he didn't know who he was meanwhile at the festival the scene always won Hell itself the shooting began at 1005 PM the shooter had taken up a position on the sill of one of two windows that had earlier smashed with a hammer and opened fire just as the headline act Jason Aldean was getting into his closing number initially he just took a few isolated single shots to Gage his aim and then having adjusted his windage in elevation he welded his fingers at the trigger and Unleashed an unrelenting barrage on the poor crowd below the shooting was to continue for exactly 10 minutes A Time long enough to allow the shooter to discharge over a thousand rounds mostly in unrelenting bursts of 80 to 100 rounds that emptied entire high-capacity magazines with a single Trio pull and it's the noise and action of the festival many on the ground mistook the early shots for fireworks or simply didn't notice them at all tragically this illusion was soon shattered as Festival goers began falling to the floor by the Dozen a mess Panic then emanated across the festival as this Grim realization set in A Brave few remained on the scene doing what they could to keep low and administer first aid to the initial victims but the majority quite understandably trying to flee unfortunately their escape was hampered by the festival's perimeter security events once a symbol of protection the fence and its limited number of gates were now a bottleneck slowing down escape and leaving many attendees penned in in the shooter's line of fire also on the ground were several police officers who had been posted to the enormous Festival they too generally mistook the initial shots for fireworks but the first officers to realize the true nature of the situation being officer Hutcherson and special events coordinator Rodriguez they had been posted to the festival's command post and had used the vast network of cameras connected to it to search for the source of the fireworks initially believing it to be some over the enthusiastic Spectators or unruly local kids who were setting them off these cameras gave them a full 360 degree view of the situation and as they watched the people collapsing to the ground on mass reality hit them like a train with their system of cameras now forcing upon them the burden of coordinating the initial police response fortunately Hutcherson and Rodriguez proved to be competent and as rounds continue to Ray down they identified casualties on their cameras and tried to make sure their fellow officers administered first aid in those precious life deciding few minutes to come after being shot saving dozens of lives in the process in a further thought you were to stern Hutcherson and Rodriguez also managed to identify the source of the shooting the constant muzzle flash standing out clear as day emitted the dark backdrop of the Mandalay Bay Hotel they fed all of this information back to Central commands who now found themselves with the unenviable task of having to coordinate the full response mercifully that response was Swift in arrival every single available officer in the police department was immediately scrambled to respond to the situation forming a blue tidal wave of officers that surged toward the chaos with the inexorable force of a tempest registered subdue the storm of violence there was wreaking havoc on innocent festivities fortunately by pure fluke of Fate there also just happened to be two police officers in the hotel when the shooting started officers Hendricks and varsen who had been in the process of arresting two women for trespassing when the shooting began and thus were able to respond almost immediately they formed a posse with anybody handy who happened to be present namely security managers Alka scottill and umstart as well as engineering supervisor Alsbury and then stormed skywards as fast as the main passenger elevator could carry them making sure to lock it behind themselves to prevent civilians from getting caught in the crossfire inside the tight confines of the elevator a confusion that mirrored the pandemonium outside swirled it was all happening so fast campus has clear reporting on the positioning of the shooter had yet to reach the responding Posse and so with the shooter's exact position unknown they did all they could do cast a wide net and hope they caught him Whispers of potential sites were thrown into the air and it was decided to focus on the 29th to 33rd floors this lack of precise Intel made the experience rather unsettling for the Posse it's so many flaws to search and so many rooms now codes to pass any one of them could be hiding a shooter waiting to greet them with a barrage of automatic fire daunting though it was they pressed on the madness had to end and it had to end now and they were going to do everything in their power to do just that then when the doors finally opened on what must have been the slowest elevator ride of their lives they set about their task initially they went with silence only getting a hint of the shooter's location when they reached the 31st floor at which point the unending tide of rifle fire through though dim and muffled could easily be heard above them so for the last time they pressed upwards by now it was 1008 three minutes apart since the shooting began an already 389 rounds had been discharged into the crowd but at this point the civilians at the festival were granted a brief reprieve as for a Time the shooter took his scope off them and turned it on McCarran Airport which sat right beside the hotel his Target oh is the hulking fuel tanks that sat right on the airport's perimeter if I had a single shot unfortunately cleanly missed the round harmlessly cracking through the air going over the fuel tank and disappearing off into the distance yeah but it's the first round the first round's just is like okay cool and then he adjusts his scope or his aim and then he knows what he's doing but unfortunately as we saw earlier the shoot was a constant Marksman and so he adjusted his windage and elevation once again and began inching single shots ever closer to the fuel tanks the fifth and six shots actually connected striking a fuel tank on its top and bottom respectively mercifully the rounds failed to penetrate having lost so much velocity by the time they reached their target that they simply bounced off the thick steel skin of the tank causing nothing but cosmetic damage given the fact that the two on-target rounds left Scorch marks indicative of incendiary rounds it is truly lucky that the tanks hadn't been built just a little bit thinner or if the shooter had just been that bit closer or else the story would have taken a very dark turn indeed at this point how big are those tanks and were the people around so I guess there must have been this detour provided a small but precious window of time that a veil that allowed the evacuation and treatment of many civilians still on the ground at the festival but this reprieve wasn't lost and with it being clear that the fuel tank wasn't going to go up the shooter blindly let off a further two round toward the airport two rounds towards the airport in anger and then returned his attention back to the festival with a shooting resuming just before 10 10. it was at this point the campus alarm would finally be answered but not by the police security party we discussed earlier as they for some reason hadn't managed to climb a single flight of stairs in the two minutes the shooter had been focused on these on the airport no instead it was one engineer shock who would next beyond the scene up until now shuck had been blissfully unaware of the foul events unraveling on the 32nd Floor he was well aware that there was a weird noise but on account of the many thick layers of concrete and steel that suppressed and distorted the sound on its way to him he was unable to properly identify it and so he assumed it to be the maintenance team hard at work on some task task or another and he paid it no heed but then he strolled onto the 32nd Floor and the reality of the matter hit him like a train he immediately disregarded his own safety and quickly charged in to investigate further fortunately for him however Campos shouted a warning of imminent danger from The Alcove that he was still sheltered him which gave Chuck just enough time to dive the cover is another hail of bullets tore through the door leading to the shooter's Suite having survived the volley unscathed he attempted to crawl to another room for cover but it was locked so he did all that could be done he kept his head down and he called his boss for help grabbing His Radio and desperately shouting Shannon call the police someone's firing a rifle on the 32nd Floor down the hallway but this Sparks a couple of questions where the hell were the police why weren't they on the 32nd Floor at the very moment sending the shooter down to Hell where he belonged while they they didn't know quite where he was right after all they'd been perfectly positioned fate to put them in the lobby of the hotel right at the moment the shooter began his brutal Massacre and they were hardly dragging their heels and getting up there so what gives well in word incompetence not from those responding officers mind you by all accounts their heroism and willingness to get themselves In Harm's Way to bring this madness to an end went absolutely above and beyond the Call of Duty no instead it was one officer Hendricks whose shoulders this fatal cup lie on in the police report we get a single line on the matter officer Hendricks instructed everyone to move back for report which is otherwise so detailed I found the shortness of detail peculiar so I went digging some more and it turns out at the time this report was published the 3rd of August 2018 he was under investigation and was later fired for actions or lacked thereof on the night of the shooting as this needless delay continued to drag out the situation on the ground was only getting worse detective Clarkson who was initially positioned on Las Vegas Boulevard and had promptly reacted to the initial shots was searching for the ruthless perpetrator amidst the chaos desperately searching for anything he could do to bring the madness to an end as bullets rain down around him he soon found himself a direct Target and as the volume of fire landing around him made this fact abundantly clear he took cover behind a patrol car and took around the neck tragically this wasn't just a fake reserve for Clarkson either as his comrade officer cook also took a round that penetrated straight through his right bicep and came to rest in his chest fortunately they both survived the officers still on their feet were doing what they could to gain some control of the chaotic situation leading people to exits administering the first aid to the wounded and coordinating with off-duty medical personnel attending the concert in a particularly bold display of heroic disregard for their own safety officers to the west of the festival even formed a human barrier against the ever oncoming fire tragically however officer Hartfield who was off duty and attending the concert at a punt as a punto was fatally wounded during this action mercifully the dead 15 after 10 long minutes the shooting stopped the end of the massacre being marked by the shriek of a single revolver shot as the shooter took his own life meanwhile back in the hotel the police were finally getting a response figured out the burden of heading up to Suite 32 125 fell to sergeants Richmond and riddle and Van Ness to all rapidly assembled strike teams from available officers and with unwavering resolve traversed the chaotic Las Vegas Boulevard cut through the Luxor Hotel parking lot entered the Mandalay Bay and began making their way to the shooter's Suite their task always to get Campos and shark out of there fortunately the pair was still alive and well and they were both extracted from floor 32 and sent to the hospital without further incident then when a heat scan of 32-1225 confirmed that the shooter was very much dead the next thing to be done was to extract all of the civilians from the floor before they penetrated the suite again this was done without incidents with there being a practically heartwarming moment when officers discovered a small infant alone in a room and swiftly reunited her with her grandma across the hall much the relief of her own present and then there was the main event penetrating the suite immediately they ran into an obstacle remote those baby monitors the shooter had set up um no wait did you mention that George I don't remember baby monitors wait so he was monitoring stuff with baby bat okay like okay did I just gloss over that in my mind like I have one of those moments where I was like did I read something you just totally don't remember it or did George cut that at some point and then leave this hanging well the officers weren't blessed with the power of hindsight like we are so when they saw some modified electronic things with a load of wires poking out of it they naturally assumed that it could be a bomb fortunately one officer Hancock who was present on the floor had experience on the bomb squad so he was quickly able to relieve everyone's fears then was matter of the L bracket keeping the door to the Sweet bolted shut for this problem a Swift and direct solution was decided upon explosives why not just unscrew it as Lieutenant hudler carefully applied the explosive to the door the rest of the team prepared sure they believed the shooter to be dead but they were taking no chances they had just seen what he was capable of so officer Newton crouched ready with the ballistic shield with Sergeant bitsko stood over him with a high-powered rifle and after 30 seconds of waiting just to see if the shooter had any more tricks up his cold sleeve huddler flicked the switch blew the door and the team piled in through the resulting smoke with Newton Lee the charge What followed was a grim exploration front and center was the shooter's cold lifeless body along with a blood-stained revolver lying on the carpet beside him not that you could see much of the carpet by that point as the floor was practically filled with brass cartridge cases then there were the guns as rifles upon rifles were strewn everywhere all of this ominously topped by the howl of cold night air entering the suite through the smashed windows but harrowing as the scene was there would be time to document it later as the officers had something much more pressing in their minds making sure no other individuals were hiding in the suite waiting to give them a violent surprise fortunately there wasn't and with that the scene was turned over to forensics and the Las Vegas shooting was finally over the shooter now before we dive deeper into today's story I need to make one thing blatantly apparent I'm not naming the shooter in this video this decision is rooted in my belief that the ones who are truly worthy of memory memorialization are his 60 victims the shooter himself is a little bit of demon wearing the skin of a human being a parasite his only notable contribution to the human experiment is the brutal extinguishing of five dozen innocent lives and so they don't deserve to be remembered or them God willing with this approach I will do my small part in a raising their name from the cultural Zeitgeist because personally I would be a very happy man in the near future if his name was invoked not in Anger not in Rage nothing to start discuss but absolutely not at all his being becoming no more pertinent to history than the dirt that currently resides on the soul of my shoe yes good way of putting it um I don't remember this dude's name and I'm happy it's this way because [ __ ] this guy they probably will be there is also some method to my madness here because while my decision is ultimately one based on emotion rather than reason research done on the question of naming Mass Shooters would also imply my choice is the rational one so let's now take a brief few minutes to overview This research because it proves not just to be interesting for justifying my own choice not to name the shooter but also provides valuable Insight on how we should View and process mass shootings more generally okay this sounds interesting one theory of note is that of contagion within the context of a mass shooting this Theory suggests that there is a direct causal link between one mass shooting inspiring further incidents in its waykin to a copycat effect for many years specifically in the immediate post Columbine years this theory was the accepted rationale for pundits who chose not to name Shooters but it appears to have fallen out of Vogue in recent years having been made obsolete by more fleshed out thinking and being criticized as simply ascribing a causal link oh and it only really presented evidence of a correlative one for a more nuanced understanding we must look at generalized imitation Theory this describes their learned ability to perform behaviors similar to those observed or described even after some delay creating a propensity for behaviors were previously there was none numerous factors can influence this propensity for imitation including the model's perceived similarity to The Observer their social status the rewards they receive and their competence suddenly with this understanding of the theory we can see why my choice not to name the shooter would appear to be a most sensible one yeah agreed and I think like this is obviously something that happens all across the board isn't there it doesn't happen famously in like sports like if someone is really does like sets an incredible record like way above then everyone is lifted up because they were like oh wow humans can do that right and I guess the same with shootings if it's like oh this guy killed 60 people huh humans can do that and then there's some psychos out there who are like yeah I can do that I'm gonna do that and then this stuff happens which is just horrible it also makes my role as a content creator a somewhat burdensome one make no mistake I always try to approach every topic I cover with respect and dignity but never before have I tried to contend with the possibility that my content could play a small part in pushing an unstable person over the edge and lead to further tragedy truly as a content creator it is hard to imagine a more horrific consequence of my work but unfortunately many in the media both new and Legacy do not seem to be quite as conscientious with their reporting and so there has been ample opportunity to discover exactly how generalized imitation Theory plays out in the real world one of the chief things that it discovered rather morbidly is that sloppy reporting can serve as an ad hoc training manual with an unstable person effectively taking notes from media reporting seeing what pass Shooters did right where they messed up and making refinements to their own plans accordingly naturally I will not be naming past Shooters who have done this yeah and obviously like I make jokes about how terrible criminals are and all the things they do wrong I'm gonna refrain from doing that because well for obvious reasons furthermore it was also found that careless media reporting can for lack of a better description May to make a shooter sexy as in their unrelenting Crusade for eyeballs on their screens they end up dramatizing the shooting to the point where it is depicted as some kind of high adrenaline at times bordering on heroic Last Stand Against All Odds I see nothing heroic about this if you see stuff like this and you think it's heroic there's something wrong with you there really is like if you look at things like this or Sandy Hook is kids if you see anything here about there's a coward these are cowards the most cowardly cowards disgusting human beings for this reason you will notice that in my recounting of the shooting the actual descriptions of the violins tend to be pretty Bare Bones short sharp paragraphs and rather plainly explained what he was doing and then moved on with far more of the story's word count being dedicated to the victims and the heroes of the story for those interested in knowing more my sources for this chapter has been a paper titled mass shootings the role of media and promoting generalized imitation written by doctors James mindel and Jonathan Ivey should he be interested in more depth explanation of what I just discussed this paper is freely available online so now that my rationale behind our naming the shooter and some interesting wider context has been fully explained let's get back to the ongoing story of Las Vegas eyewitness accounts now let's step back into the main Narrative of our story but now having already seen how the main series events played out let's expand our understanding by zooming in examining a few detailed witness accounts under the proverbial microscope this will give us a valuable opportunity to appreciate the smaller more nuanced details that did not fit our main narrative the emotions the reactions and the split-second decisions that decided life or death during those 10 long minutes we're going to begin with officer W stutzman of the convention center area command it was posted to the festival and so found himself right in the heart of the unraveling horror to keep things authentic this account has been lifted word for word from the operational officers report which is to sprinkling of editing for myself to remove technical release terminology that doesn't help our understanding what's a long quote okay here we go on the day in question I worked at the Route 91 Harvest Festival I was sponsored I was partnered with officer Tran and we were assigned interior Patrol west of the stage grass area Russia was scheduled from 1700 to midnight we were standing next to the guard rail that separated the general access area to the VIP tents that was located on the west side of the venue when the first shots occurred Tran and I started walking South to investigate and I was looking in the air because it sounded like fireworks I remember a few LAPD officers that were hanging out with us who said get it boys as we walked away while still walking toward the stage a second volley went off and I realized that something wasn't right there were a few people standing around someone laying down on the grass to our left we turned and looked and saw a female lying on a bag with a gunshot wound to her right eye a man was holding her head and he looked at me and asked for help the female's gunshot wound was bleeding severely the blood was running and gushing out of her eye and spilling into her nose and mouth at this point Tran called out an alert on the radio I told the male to turn her onto her side so that she can breathe and he said no because she was having a seizure the female was violently shaking the third volley ran out and I heard impacts hitting in front of me unknown how far away they struck but it seemed within 10 feet at this point everyone started screaming and I told everyone to move the volleys were definitely coming from the hotel area and sounded like they were right outside the main fence Chan and I ran back towards the VIP tent there were people laying down and running for cover Tran told some people to get down and not wisdom at the base of the tent I continued to hear volleys which sounded like they were coming from just outside the fence I drew my weapon and ran up the stairs in the VIP tent because I knew there was another set of stairs at the South Side I was telling people to get down as I ran after I went down the South set of stairs I realized there was not an exit so I ran along the perimeter fence Northbound to reach gate two I exited through the gate and got behind a four to five foot brick wall that runs parallel with the Las Vegas Boulevard and myself and another officer ran South along the wall at this time it still sounded like the shooter was close and I was trying to get to the threat when we reached the end of the wall we were at Mandalay Bay Boulevard there were about five officers and 10 civilians behind the wall as more shots ran out approximately seven more officers jumped over the wall coming west to east to get behind cover we now realize the shots were coming from an elevated position and we were in a horrible spot I told everyone around to remove their traffic vests the shooting continued to what seemed like 30 minutes we started telling all the civilians to move Northbound and back into the grounds there was a guy who could not stand or walk due to an unknown injury and I myself and officer Ryan Courtney I think it was him picked him up and ran him Northbound and then into the grounds where we dropped him off to other people that were helping when the shooting finally stopped there were three sergeants and about 15 officers we split into groups of three and ran across the Boulevard going from cover to cover on the other side of the boulevard oh we jumped over a fence and ran through a parking lot on the west side of the boulevard two groups went in through the valley and the Strike Team I was with entered through the House of Blues at this time we still thought there were multiple Shooters and began to clear the casino floor of the Mandalay Bay when we got to the Michael Jackson theater we realized that there were 1300 people inside due to the amount of people and the offices we had we locked ourselves in the theater and sat on the exit until we were cleared to go back for debrief the account speaks through itself and offers a studsman's own words do a far better job conveying the horror of the shooting that I ever could from the outside looking in so now let's do the same again but from a different perspective the one of Officer Brosnahan who was one of the SWAT officers who entered the Mandalay Bay to stop the shooter long quote again I officer Brosnahan operating as a uniform SWOT officer did respond to the Mandalay Bay active shooter event at 22-1500 hours I was off duty when I received a text message from my supervisor Sergeant Wiggins stating that there was an active shooter at the Mandalay Bay that I along with the entire SWAT team was to respond I drove my unmarked Metro vehicle logging on as I was on Route while listening to the radio details were scattered and unclear as the number of Shooters their locations and how many locations they had attacked rather than pulling up to the Mandalay Bay directly and into an ambush a supervisor got on the SWAT radio channel and instructed all SWAT Personnel to meet at the South Central Area command to stage and deploy from there once arrived the assistant team leader SWAT Officer Stevens told me that he needed to deploy as a sniper so I grabbed my sniper gear including my LaRue 308 semi-automatic sniper rifle I then linked up with SWAT officer Mickelson and drove in his truck to Mandalay Bay we arrived at the Four Seasons entrance and immediately encountered 40 plus civilians taking cover and asking for help Nicholson and I escorted the crowd to the Boulevard and then directed them South towards the Patrol perimeter Nicholson and I then entered the Four Seasons entrance to Mandalay Bay we were able to locate an elevator and took it to the 35th floor the lowest floor that we could get to on that elevator we've heard radio traffic that the shoot was on the 32nd Floor in Suite where he was shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert once on the 35th floor we found stairs and took those down to the 32nd Floor we entered the hallway and immediately to our left found a suite at the end of the hallway with a partially opened door we didn't know if this was the sweep the shooter was in so we entered and checked the suite not finding anyone inside Nicholson and I then made our way to the central rotunda of the 32nd Floor and contacted several officers and Mandalay Bay employees they directed us towards the suspect's suite looking down the wing of The suspect's Suite oh we could see at the end of the hallway the double doors to the suite the left door as you look at it had dozens of bullet holes in it we also observed that several Patrol and plainclothes officers and one spot officer O'Donnell were halfway down the suspect Hall and taking cover in the hotel room alcoves Mickelson and I ran down the hallway to those officers and set up as a sniper team covering the suspect's doors the officers informed me that they had not heard gunfire come from the room for several minutes SWAT offers a Hancock then broadcast that he was entering the suspect hallway from the stairwell next to the suspect's suite to hang an explosive breach Mickelson and I covered their movements the breach was detonated and the left door did come free from the hinges only hanging on the interior door return the breach team then tore the door all the way down and slowly entered the suite after the team entered Mickelson and I were out of Play We were set to be a downed officer Rescue Team once the second charge went off inside of The Suite we heard a discharge of a firearm Nicholson and I made the decision to enter the suite in case the team ran short her bodies by the time we entered the suite and enjoining room were cleared and the suspect was found dead inside the suspect had apparently shot himself in the head with a silver revolver inside of the room we observed at least 18 AR style rifles with various types of accessories on them hundreds of loaded rifle magazines cameras attached to the backs of the doors looking through the peoples a table run from the bedroom of The Suite into the suite monitors and various other items there were hundreds of spent shell casings on the sweet floor a sledgehammer and two broken out windows one in the main suite and the other in the adjoin hotel room the suspect had also run two cameras to a room service car that was still in the hallway Hancock was able to locate the suspect ID and broadcast the I broadcast over the SWAT channel that the suspect had been located and that we used explosive charges and the suite was clear the suite was then turned over to Uniformed Patrol officers and Mickelson and I made our way downstairs to link up with other swap Personnel to begin looking for additional suspects we cleared a luggage storage valet area that several Hotel guests security and Valley workers had taken cover in among the group was a security officer that had been shot in the leg on the 32nd Floor I escorted him to our SWAT doctor for treatment the team I was with then cleared the staff area of the Mandalay Bay finding two employees hiding in the manager's office we escorted them to safety we were then tasked along with the entire SWAT team to go floor by floor and clear every hotel room in the Mandalay Bay once the rooms were cleared we all went back to debrief and the quote ends I demon into the uninterrupted just because well one it was extremely compelling and interrupting quotes is sometimes a bit difficult but it's like I just wanted to say this guy was extremely well prepared with all the cameras and the monitors and an insane number of guns and ammunition it must have been I think I remember it's like he was smuggling them into the hotel for ages like going out and then coming back with like another suitcase and obviously like loading it up with guns right but that's a shitload of guns to get into a hotel room he must have gone out and hung that sign and be like do not disturb please don't go in there please don't go in there they're very good at it I think one time I hung do not disturb and they went in and clean my room anyway generally when I stay in a hotel if it's just like two or three nights I'm always like do not disturb I don't need my bed made I don't know what people were rifling through my someone was like if I'm never longer then it's like yeah okay you make up the room but generally I'm just like it's okay I'm just here for a couple of nights I don't need my room cleaned every day it's good advice like with officer stutzman's account this game straight from the police officer's reports and it gives us a lot of insight that simply wouldn't be possible if I were to recount his experience to you second hand yeah no this was uh this probably the longest quote that we've ever had on casual criminalist and I feel that it works very well I was I was gripped by it it's very compelling at this point having now seen the testimony of both an officer who was on the ground at the scene an officer who responded to it I'd hoped to make a nice well-rounded trauma at a perspective by finishing with a similar perspective from a civilian who was on the ground during the shooting but unfortunately I was unable to locate any during my search the Las Vegas Police certainly will have taken many such testimonies but for whatever reason I wasn't able to get my hands on any but I still wish to repeat this valuable perspective so what I've done instead is collate a small selection of short witness testimonies from contemporary news reports also note that most of the interviews consisted of back and forth questions and answers which don't really lend themselves well to direct quotation in the manner we did for office stutzman and Brosnan so I've combined them and paraphrase the original quotes while maintaining the language and context of the original quote first we have an anonymous concert who spoke to ABC News and recalled The Dread that consumed them when they realized that the noise that they had previously believed to be fireworks was not in fact fireworks he then went on to recount how one of his friends was hit three times and he had to drag him under the stage to escape escape the continuing gunfire then realizing that his friend was losing critical amounts of blood and couldn't afford to wait around for the gunfire to cease he dragged his friend through the incoming bullets to get him Aid the pair made it to an improvised triage Center without being hit any further but sadly his friend didn't make it and he died in his arms then there was Jamie Vasquez who in an interview with Mary Claire revealed how she too had initially thought that the gunfire was fireworks and when the Grim realization hit her she had absolutely no cover that she could easily flee to so instead she made the brave choice to lie down on the ground minimizing her profile to the shooter and then during one of the shooter's many Pearl pauses to reload she stared herself and fled the scene not stopping running until she hit the safe of a police roadblock Gail Davis proved luckier than most speaking to CBS she recounted how her husband had immediately recognized the first few aim-adjusting shots taken at 1005 as semi-automatic rifle fire and so he immediately took her by the hand and made for an exit getting a several second head start on the majority of the crowd who initially mistook the gun via the fireworks tragically however she also recounted seeing a girl beside her get shot and immediately collapse a girl though she later discovered did not survive another anonymous con to go are also speaking with CBS described the terrifying moment when mass panic consumed the festival crowd they recalled seeing most people running with nowhere to go the festival was packed shoulder to shoulder and it was completely open with hardly any cover but still people instinctively just started moving desperate to do anything and everything they could to escape the venue they also recalled seeing a few Brave civilians who disregarded their own safety and rushed to the aid of the casualties doing anything they could to apply pressure to their wounds and buy them some more time and speaking of Bravery as clay Wilson who in an interview with People magazine revealed how he'd used his own body to protect his wife pulling her to the floor as she panicked and positioning himself on top of her then certain that death would come for him he called his children amidst the shooting for what he was sure was a final goodbye one can't help but a bar clay Wilson's strength and quick thinking in the face of imminent danger to Shield a loved one without a second thought while confronting the very real possibility of it being his last moments alive is an act of Bravery that embodies the essence of the civilian Recollections not near anecdotes but an anthology of raw human endurance suffering and bravery even in the face of insurmountable odds so as we bring this section to a close we're now able to appreciate the true tragedy of the events in a way that we simply were not able to Prior these experiences though unique all bear the same heart-renting undertones of fear of resilience of tragic loss so now let's move on from the event itself and let's take a look at the police investigation that followed yes as light as important as this is It's So grim and I like it when the police get handed the obviously this guy just shot himself like a coward so there's no you know satisfaction of the arrest or anything but let's look at the investigation [Music] oh the police's first task following the shooting was to fully document the crime scene and recover every shred of evidence that it had to give naturally then this also meant bagging and tagging the shooter's cash Firearms which as you may have ascertained was unfathomably large 24 in total were recovered from The Suite Jesus Christ that's a lot of guns including 14 5.56 by 45 millimeter AR-15 type rifles from a range of different manufacturers eight 7.62 times 51 millimeter AR-10 type rifles also from a different range of Manufacturers and one 7.62 by 51 millimeter Ruger American bolt action rifle and won 38 Special Smith and Wesson 342 revolver how is can you just buy as many guns as you want this guy bought 22 assault rifles and a rifle and a revolver and it's just like fine anyone who's buying 14 AR-15s should be on some like what are you doing with 14 assault rifles now if you know anything about Firearms you'll know that none of the aforementioned weapons are fully automatic with the Ruger American being manually operated and the AR-10s and 15s all being semi-automatic self-loaders which only deliver one round per trigger pull and therefore shouldn't have been capable of the exceptional rate of fire that the shooter was achieving so how did he do it if I remember this is something called a bump stock and it is basically allows you to convert a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon which I mean surely that has to be massively illegal but if I remember correctly it's not which seems insane anyway let's see the police had this question too and as they inspected his weapons more closely they found their answers bump stocks and large capacity magazines this terrifying combination for all intents and purposes allowed is semi-automatics to function as machine guns with their initial catalog of the Firearms completed the police's attention then turned figuring out how and when each of the Firearms seized from the hotel room had been used a subsequent forensic investigation of The Suite turned up 1057 shell casings which were meticulously studied to trace back to their firearm of origin the analysis confirmed that 14 rifles had been fired during the incident and will spay the full list but with most of the weapons having been fired for exactly or just under the amount of rounds its now empty magazine could hold it appears as though the shooter's strategy was to have his cache of weapons lined up beside him a fire until his magazine was either empty or the weapon jammed and then drop it and repeat with another weapon next on the to-do list was DNA every single item from The Suite was collected and scraped for any trace of DNA which the police hoped would allow them to ascertain if anyone else had been involved in the shooting wait this is a hotel room like as thoroughly as you clean that a lot of people are in it out and surely there's going to be a lot of DNA all over the show get the mischievous look in your eyes this seemed to prove conclusively that the shooter had acted alone the only other DNA recovered besides his belonging the hostel staff all of whom quickly proved that they had absolutely nothing to do with the shooting thanks to watertight Alibis and extensive supporting CCTV footage from the hotel and then it was on to the digital evidence which proved to be no small task the detective sifted through 22 000 hours of CCTV footage and a whopping 252 000 images which ultimately yielded just over 500 sightings of the shooter and allowed the police to build up a comprehensive understanding of his movements in the weeks leading up to the shooting oh my God that is an extraordinary amount of how many people were working on this I guess a lot because it's the biggest mass shooting in history they also dug into four laptops and three mobile phones that were discovered in the shooter Suite revealing online queries including everything from biggest open-air concert venues in USA to more specific searches related to anticipated crowd sizes for music festivals including life is beautiful and Route 91 Harvest Festival they also found that they had sought out information on the height of the Mandalay Bay Hotel various Las Vegas venues SWAT tactics and the performance of different types of ammunition over varying distances disgustingly they also found several hundred images of child pornography why what the [ __ ] why do you have to just why does this have to go in there they also found evidence of a failed previous attempt to carry out another mass shooting having discovered that the shooter had previously booked a hotel room overlooking the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago's Grant Park in August this reservation was mysteriously canceled just two days before check-in this why does this guy have so many mobile phones and hotels and he's just like searching for how do you not get on some sort of list I always make that joke it's like oh yeah if you know you're searching for like how to how to make a gun from plastic or whatever you'd definitely be on some list and they should be pulling you aside at the airports and I know there's like way too much information for this to ever be really maybe with like artificial intelligence and stuff they're going to be much better at this in some sort of like scary dystopian way but hopefully less terroristy way but I always joke that you should that you should go on some sort of list but this guy's like nice it's like if you were given those Search terms right and just like what's this guy planning and you'll be like why he's gonna plan a mass shooting of a music festival from a high story of a hotel isn't he that's what he's up to which is insane he doesn't use a VPN what are you up to but for all of this extensive searching one thing was not discovered and that was a motive and all investigators could do was piece together possible motivations from whatever scraps of evidence they could find one explanation that was floated was that the shooter was motivated by far-right political inclinations just a few days before the shooting he was overheard discussing seminal far-right event the Ruby Ridge standoff and the Waco Siege both of which catalyzed the anti-government militia movement of the 1990s additionally a man who crossed paths with the shooter during an unsuccessful Firearms transaction revealed that he had voiced strong anti-government sentiments ranting about FEMA camps likening them to government-controlled concentration camps he also supposedly saw the agency's operations after Hurricane Katrina as a guise for a larger conspiracy a dry run for the Royal wasn't a military to start confiscating guns okay these Notions tie back to conspiracy theories originating in the radical right circles since the 1980s casting femur as a puppet in the hands of the global Elite possing plotting to usurp U.S sovereignty isn't FEMA the environmental like Federal Environmental Management agency I have no idea if that's correct but I think it's got something to do with like in response to natural disasters why is there a conspiracy theory around this is they just help people out they're the people who said water when there's no Plumbing working anymore it's kind of nice having that kind of free time despite this the investigators traded carefully and were reluctant to ascribe far-eye Tendencies as the shooter's deaf and a motivation because it was just one of several possible explanations that they discovered another potential motivation was found in this family history an FBI report suggested that the shooter was inspired at least in part by his father's reputation as a bank robber who once made the FBI's most wanted list potentially leading to an extreme desire for infamy as a perverse interpretation of his father's Criminal Legacy yeah Robin Banks is a little different to mass shooting dozens of people isn't it this potential explanation was compounded by his ex-wife who indicated that he grew up in a financially unstable home with a single mother resulting in an insatiable desire for attention that eventually mutated into the pure evil that unfolded on October the 1st the FBI's Behavior Analysis unit considered these possibilities for a couple of years but eventually arrived at a complete Dead End closing the case in January 2019 without ever having decided on a motive for the mass shooting that's crazy we don't know why he did it if you are my two cents worth on his motivation he was an evil piece and frankly I don't give a single toss about what inspired him to commit such an evil act isn't it I I not I'm not interested from like the personal perspective I'm interested from like a professional perspective not that I'm a professional at this stuff you know what I mean like what caused this to happen what was wrong with him so he can consider this in dealing with the situation in the future right like what what because okay maybe he was just an evil bastard but maybe something and they're the female and the conspirant maybe it's just an evil crazy conspiracy theorist that seems like the most likely explanation and then it's not what I'm supposed to do fight against conspiracy theorists and then they just think we're part of the conspiracy it's stupid conspiracy theorists are stupid and sometimes occasionally right which is kind of worrying have I been writing these scripts for so long that I have become jaded and cynical to the point that I get overly emotive when contemplating violent crime or most certainly but alas it is what it is and when I think about the 60 innocent lives that were extinguished because of this deranged demon I find myself with a high single left to give for his motivations if you get Wi-Fi done and hello to watching this unnamed shooter know that as I write this I'm laughing at you laughing at the pathetic waste of Flesh and bone that was your life and now I view you with all the pitiful contempt that I typically reserve for toddlers throwing Tantrums not following that much needed release of emotional pressure let's take our attention off the shooter who even unnamed has already occupied far too much of this script than he deserves and instead refocus on what really matters his victims the victims [Music] in the aftermath of any tragedy it is vital to remember the victims to recall the vibrant lives extinguished too soon and to remind ourselves of the indelible imprints they left behind in doing so we humanize the numbers we give meaning to the loss we wrestle the victims from the clutches of Oblivion and we declare that they mattered and will continue to matter ordinarily I immerse myself in this task I learn about every individual I commit to memory their names their faces their smiles I recount their stories no matter how unremarkable or extraordinary they might be I pay homage to them to the life they led to the people they loved the dreams they harbored but today I'm at a loss today I'm confronted by a daunting task a canvas vast and overwhelming populator by 60 distinct Strokes each rightfully demanding its unique Dew each victim was a universe in themselves a constellation of experiences and aspirations that were abruptly extinguished how then can I distill these diverse realities into a single narrative without blurring the lines of their individuality so let us embark on this journey of remembrance together bearing in mind that these stories though a mere fraction of the toll represent a hole a mosaic of lives a ravocably altered by a senseless act of violence think of Jack Reginald Beaton a man whose final Act was one of selfless love his body becoming a shield to protect the woman he'd love for 23 years then there was Christopher Lewis Roybal a Navy veteran who traded the battlefields of Afghanistan for the neon lights of Las Vegas only to lose his life away from the combat zones he'd survived turn your thoughts to Lisa Marie Patterson whose faith and love for sports lit a beacon in a community or to Adrian Alan Murphy the jovial fisherman from Anchorage dreaming of his own boat and then there was Angela Gomez a diligent nursing student with an infectious zest for Life who had done the very cusp of realizing her dreams consider the heartache of Austin William Davis's partner mourning the loss of the man that she had expected to spend the rest of her life with and Stacy Anne echever whose husband a police officer was robbed of the chance to protect his wife as he pledged to protect his City among the victims were also those who served their communities with dedication and passion Heather Lorraine Alvarado a member of the Cedar City fire department's Ladies Auxiliary whose loss reverberated through our community Charleston Hartfield a police officer and National Guard member who was slain while administering Aid to the victims and finally there were those whose potential was so cruelly ripped away like recent graduate Christiana Duarte embarking on a promising career with the Los Angeles Kings or Kerry Lynn Galvin a mother of three who could recall every customer's order but was robbed of the chance to recall that children growing up these are but the briefest sketches incomplete and inadequate behind each name was a story a family a community that continues to reel from the devastating loss each death was a tear in the fabric of countless lives each absence is a gaping hole that can never be filled these stories serve as a haunting reminder of the cost of hate and the price of indifference yet in the midst of this profound tragedy it's critical to remember that the essence of these victims isn't encapsulated in their deaths but in the lives they LED they were parents spouses children friends neighbors and colleagues they were individuals who loved who dreamed who aspired who left a mark on the world in ways big and small while this account doesn't Encompass all 60 victims each one of them equally important each story equally compelling the sheer magnitude of the tragedy makes it impossible to delve into The Narrative of every life cut short yet they remain in our hearts etched into our Collective Consciousness standing as a testament to our shared Humanity as for non-fatal casualties approximately 869 individuals suffered physical injuries with the police investigation confirming that about 413 were a direct result of gunshot or shrapnel about the 360 victims endured injuries nor directly related to gunshot or shrapnel wounds likely due to the chaos and subsequent Stampede caused by the shooting unfortunately for nearly 96 victims their specific type of injury couldn't be conclusively determined in addition to this the Las Vegas Police also recognized all 22 000 Festival attendees the psychological victims I think we can speak for everyone on the team at the Casual criminalist as well as everybody watching this in that we wish them well and God speed with their recovery conspiracy theories alright there's a chapter that brings me no joy but it is a sad reality of the Las Vegas shooting but it has been the center of a great number of conspiracy theories over the years I hate these people like conspiracy theories fine happier fun but when it's like around mass shootings like uh Alex Jones and his Sandy Hook it's just like you're not this isn't harmless you're hurting people which was a nicely encapsulated by the ace huge legal settlements not settlement legal fine or whatever that he got so it wasn't I over a billion God damn well deserved initially I wasn't going to include this chapter at all and not fuel the fire but after further contemplation I opted to do so for two reasons firstly because whether we like it or not it is a part of the story and I'm going to bring you a fully representative account of the shooting I have to include it but secondly and more importantly I'd rather you hear it from me first a writer who isn't trying to sell you any snake oil or wacky narratives that way you can be introduced to an ultimately learned combat the conspiracy theories rather than potentially find yourself susceptible to them later down the line the first conspiracy theory came from the minds of Brad Johnson a retired CIA officer and Rich Higgins a former Pentagon official they first ended the story about a month after the shooting when they along with a number of Associates created a 51-page PowerPoint presentation which according to its synopsis used open source information with tactical counter-terrorism analysis cyber intelligence and data mining capabilities to explain what they claim to be the reality of the Las Vegas shooting as you've probably already ascertained from its inclusion in the chapter it was kind of a complete crop of bollocks really these are two like a retired CIF or a former Pentagon official these sound like serious dudes but where their claims get really dark however is when they named a completely innocent man it was nothing but an innocent bystander at the massacre as in fact being completed in the shooting claiming that he had acted as a middleman between antifa and Isis both of them they alleged with the real masterminds behind the disaster wait did they claim this these are kind of isn't I don't know about antifa but isn't Isis kind of like if this happens they're like yeah it was us we did it their big brain irrefutable evidence of this claim a social media post of it meeting at a Turkish restaurant and no I'm not even being hyperbolic here that was literally their proof that's not proof he's eating at a Turkish restaurant obviously this was utter nonsense the video's main source is a 187-page document that was the result of a nearly year-long investigation process and collated thousands of pieces of evidence from DNA to ballistics and from CCTV footage to phone records and at any point in this video have I mentioned any sort of co-conspirator well no because there wasn't one but unfortunately nonsense it may have been but this conspiracy Theory spread like wildfire online and soon enough The Inferno was out of control the man in question naturally Keen to have nothing to do with this utter dribble private at his social media accounts and tried to get on with his life but unfortunately this was akin to waving a red flag to a bull as those rapidly dogging him took this as an admission of guilt I would sue those people who came up with this so hard like Sandy Hook victims families to Alex Jones because you're ruining this guy's life and if all of this wasn't bad enough the story was then picked up by Laura Loomer a rather controversial internet personality at which point the Wildfire escalated into more of an atomic blast I've never heard of Laura Loomer and I assume it's because she's peddling this kind of conspiratorial nonsense they've got no interested in yeah so probably why and the harassment against him only continued to grow his family and friends advised him to Simply ignore the fervor and get on with his life but eventually the stress of a total lack of privacy and constant death threats grew too great for the poor man and he went to the FBI for protection as if this wasn't bad enough The Conspiracy Theory only continued to grow even eventually finding itself entertained by actual real world not online public figures such as various anchors on a particularly litigious News Channel you know exactly which one even if we don't name it and even Congressman Scott Perry mercifully the hate train eventually put on its brakes and pulled into a siding and the unnamed innocent man was able to go about the rest of his life in peace and is Alive and Well to this day why what did they they were just suddenly like nah it's okay we'll leave the guy who we think was like conspirator alone I guess the conspiracy theory people just got bored that's strange if nothing else the unfounded accusations that nearly ruined an innocent man's life underscore a grim facet of our internet-driven era innocent bystanders can find their lives upended due to baseless conjecture magnifying the distressing aftermath of a tragic event once a narrative takes root in the fertile ground of the internet it could proved disconcertingly resilient irrespective of the protestations and evidence of those wrongfully accused and of course such baseless speculations are also an insult to the many innocent lives lost another conspiracy theory that gained Traction in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting posits that the nameless gunman was not the actual perpetrator it said it was suggested that he was set up as a patsy or scapegoat by some larger more Sinister entity whether it be the government the Deep State terrorist organization or some other shadowy group at the core of this Theory lies the belief that the scale precision and lethality of the attack far exceeds the capabilities of a single man theorists often cite the number of guns found in the hotels Suite in the rapid fire nature of the attack asserting these factors imply a degree of skill and planning beyond the actual Shooter's perceived abilities additionally some theorists latch onto perceived inconsistencies or ambiguities in the official timeline of events and law enforcement reports for instance the delay in police breaching the hotel suite or conflicting initial reports about the number and nature of the shooter's injuries are often cited as evidence of cover-up another branch of this Theory focuses on the lack of an established motive for the perpetrator's actions theorists argue that the absence of an apparent reason for him to carry out such horrificed act fuel suspicion that he was not the true perpetrator but rather the full guy for a covert operation or a broader conspiracy these theories while prolific on certain internet forums and social media platforms lack substantial evidence and are largely built on speculation misinterpretation and a profound distrust of official narratives the consensus among law enforcement and credible media Outlets is the man that we have been talking about for the last hour was indeed the shooter and any suggestion otherwise is a product of conspiracy theorizing what's more we don't even have to defer to the media to believe this once again this video's main source is an extensive 187-page investigative document published after the attack and all the pages are filled with CCTV stills of the shooter moving bags upon bags full of firearms into his room and various other clear as light evidence that fully debunks the conspiracy now as we bring this chapter to a close we must remember that unchecked conspiracy theories are not just an annoyance they are a Peril they can incite fear Stoke divisions and harm innocent individuals they are a symptom of deeper societal fish as a manifestation of our struggle to navigate an ever-changing sociopolitical landscape where the line between truth and falsehood is continually blurred in the final Reckoning the Las Vegas Shooter's story has been obscured by the fog of conspiracy which is itself a tragedy this Haze of baseless accusations and misinformation serves as a stark reminder of the need to reassess our digital discourse's navigational tools it underscores the urgency of discerning truth from fiction and treating each other with with respect in the complex Arena of online interaction in the end this is not just about ourselves it's about honoring the memory of those impacted by such horrific events and not insulting their Memories by peddling baseless and easily debunked conspiracy theories The Fallout the Las Vegas shooting served as a potent Catalyst for the rekindling of national debates on gun control legislative responses varied from state to state but in many areas there was a palpable push for stringent gun control measures doesn't this happen every time it's like there's a mass shooting people die kids die innocent people are slaughtered and then it's like there's a talk about gun control or like some sort of limitations and stuff like that doesn't it just seem that nothing's happening and then like a couple of years later something else horrific happens and they're like yeah let's do something about that nothing ever happens because these mass shootings keep happening and and honestly I don't know much about like gun control or anything like that I'm not American so it's hard for me to comment other than like it'd be nice to see people getting shot this um but it doesn't is it is it necessarily a problem with the guns being like I live in a country which has similar gun laws to America but there's not people getting shot all the time and it makes me think that it's not the guns is something else for some reason this this happens in American more and I don't know what that reason is Nevada the very State scarred by the massacre stood at the Forefront of this legislative movement in February 2019 Governor Steve sisolac signed a bill into law that expanded background checks to private gun sales and transfers effectively coz closing the so-called Gun Show loophole following the devastating incident in Las Vegas then president Donald Trump also took decisive steps to address part of the Firearms issue on December 18 2018 as Administration officially announced a regulatory ban on bump stocks how were those legal in the first place Jesus they're just for turning a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon right and automatic weapons are not allowed so how about no how about how has that ever been allowed the new regulation amended the definition of a machine gun in the nagan Control Act GCA a National Firearms Act NFA to include devices that allow semi-automatic Firearms to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger by harnessing The Recoil energy consequently the possessions sale and manufacturer of bump stocks became prohibited under federal law existing owners were given a 90-day grace period until the 26th of March 2019 to either destroy their devices or turn them into Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco firearms and explosives Beyond these two instances however legislative changes were relatively minimal despite the limited Federal action the incident had an indelible impact on the ongoing discourse surrounding gun control it served as a stark reminder of the potential Devastation wrought by firearms and the urgent need for comprehensive and effective regulation today the incident continues to reverberate through the national conversation on gun control contributing to an ongoing debate that seeks to balance individual rights with Collective safety there were also lawsuits that resulted from the shooting with one example being launched by Murray Parsons mother of the late carry Parsons one of the 60 victims of the tragedy this launched a legal challenge against several gun manufacturers and dealers defendants included industry Giants such as Colt Daniel Defense and Patriot ordinary Ordnance Factory all of whom had produced Firearms used during the massacre the lawsuit which demanded damages exceeding fifty thousand dollars per plane Turf and called for a jury trial argued that these companies knowingly sold Firearms like the AR-15 which could be readily converted into an almost automatic weapon using a bump stock despite a compelling argument by the Parsons attorney highlighting the lethal potential of these modified weapons the Nevada Supreme Court sided with the gun companies yeah I mean yeah I get why they did because it they're selling guns that are legal and bump stocks were legal somehow so it sucks I think it's not right but that's what the law was exciting Nevada Nevada revised statutes 41.131 Justice Christina Pickering stated that these companies were protected from wrongful deaths and negligence claims and bless the deaths resulted directly from a manufacturing defect the decision underscored the legal safeguards for gun companies and underscored the need for potential legislative changes in the future another lawsuit was settled in July of 2019 when MGM Resorts International the parent company of the Mandalay Bay Hotel reached a Monumental settlement agreement with the victims of the mass shooting the hotel agree depaled up to 800 million dollars to the victims making one of the most substantial Financial resolutions of its kind this is a uh what what were Mandalay Bay expected to do they couldn't have reasonably foreseen this just I this is a horrible tragedy and I have an extraordinary amount of Vic of Sympathy for the victims and the victims families but I'm not quite sure how Mandalay Bay should have an 800 million dollar liability here the settlement the result of a grilling two-year negotiation period was slated to cover the trauma and loss suffered by approximately 4 400 relatives and victims an independent third party was commissioned to distribute the funds based on factors like the severity of injuries and the impact on the victim's quality of life a process which brought some modicum of Justice albeit through financial compensation to those affected I don't really know if that's Justice it's not coming from the person who perpetrated this act is coming from the place that it took place which I don't no I don't I I don't really understand in the aftermath of the tragedy the hospitality industry also went under a transformative reassessment of its security measures the shooting had opened up a contentious debate about hotel liability prompting many establishments to re-evaluate and bolster their security procedures I mean what you're supposed to do like scan people's luggage when they come into a hotel it's not an airport practices that were once commonplace began to shift routine room checks became more frequent providing an additional layer of safety for guests and hotel staff do not disturb signs previously respected as invaluable when our subject is strict to policies that balance guests privacy with the overall safety of the hotel I'd be inclined just not to stay in a hotel with random room checks and people just going into my room when I'm staying there I understand that it's their property but I was there's some degree of privacy that I'd I'd like if I'm staying somewhere these changes while subtle underscored the industry's commitment to preventing a recurrence of such a tragic event wow okay um okay so this ends the story of America's worst mass shooting a bit of tragedy in which 60 innocent people lost their lives 869 suffered life-derailing injuries and thousands more suffered psychological trauma the likes of which we cannot even begin to truly comprehend this is normally the part of the video where I tie things off in eliteness or bow maybe try to figure out some silver lining to the cloud or in some way try to lessen the absolute punch to the gut that was the last hour or serve our lives but somehow such an ending doesn't quite feel right today so instead let's bring this episode to a close in the only way that's truly appropriate foreign appendices as ever some ramblings on how I research this piece as I always do I initially started my research by looking up secondary literature on the topic and for a case as high profile as this I was shocked to discover that basically isn't anything a value on this topic all I found was a bunch of cash crab Wikipedia copy and paste ebooks and that's about really it apologies if you offered a really well researched book I just happen to miss somehow with that in mind I was ready to send Simon my least favorite kind of email the kind where I have to scrap an interesting proposal because the information simply isn't out there to do it justice because surely I imagined primary documentation for such a high profile and such a recent event would it be available yet while that Assumption of mine proved to be rather wrong is I uncovered an absolute Treasure Trove of primary information during my research including but not limited to the official police report a written following the end of the investigation in 2018 for 187 pages of it 173 pages of Officer reports detailing the accounts of officers the night of the shooting 147 pages of Civilian witness encounters with a shooter and inches upon inches of legal paperwork related to the lawsuit as a result I'm proud to say that I believe this is the first piece I've ever written for this channel which is entirely primary source derived this is brilliant thank you George I mean primary primary store stuff and digging it out I know it's a lot of work so I really appreciate it and I imagine the audience do as well thank you thank you George you also may find how I've referred to some of the characters in today's video a bit odd for example rarely mentioning the first names of police officers this was a very specific choice on my part as so much of this video has been drawn from police documentation I wish to to respect the Privacy by only mentioning the aspects of them that were already in the public domain where I've used someone's full name it's because they themselves already willingly put it out in the public usually in a period news interview or something or I found them on LinkedIn and they gave me the thumbs up brilliant research George as always thank you so much um and thank you everybody for watching heavy episode today I'm just gonna end it there see you next time [Music]