+ A
A -
Reuters
LAS VEGAS
A 64-year-old man holed up in a 32nd-floor hotel room with multiple machine guns rained down gunfire on a Las Vegas country music festival on Sunday, slaughtering at least 58 people in the largest mass shooting in US history before killing himself.
The barrage of bullets from the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of 22,000 people lasted several minutes, causing panic. At least 515 people were injured as some fleeing fans trampled each other while police scrambled to locate the shooter.
Police on Monday identified the gunman as Stephen Paddock, who lived in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada. They said they believed he acted alone and did not know why he attacked the crowd. The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the massacre, but US officials said there was no evidence of that.
Police said Paddock had no criminal record. The gunman killed himself before police entered the hotel room he was firing from, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters."We have no idea what his belief system was,"Lombardo said.
Lombardo said there were more than 10 rifles in the room where Paddock killed himself. His arsenal included multiple machine guns. US law largely bans machine guns.
Police found several more weapons at Paddock's home in Mesquite, about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Las Vegas, Mesquite police spokesman Quinn Averett told reporters.
The shooting sparked an outcry from some lawmakers about the pervasiveness of guns in the United State.
