Surveillance video from inside the MGM’s Mandalay Bay shows Las Vegas attacker Stephen Paddock moving bag after of bag of firearms and other supplies into his suite in the days before the October 1, 2017, attack.
The video shows how Paddock spent his time, in the days leading up to the attack, and how hotel staff unwittingly transported massive bags, some of which would have contained weaponry, into his room.
The video was obtained by the New York Times. In it, Paddock is seen as an unassuming figure, gambling for hours at a time, then leaving the hotel to drive to his home in Mesquite, Nevada, where he would grab more bags to bring to the hotel. He repeated this pattern in the days leading up to the attack and, on at least one trip, bought a new gun and took it shooting at a gun range before returning to the hotel.
The video shows the layout of the suite Paddock checked into on the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay, and highlighted the fact that he also rented the room next door to his suite. He was simultaneously checked into a condominium in downtown Las Vegas. The downtown condo overlooked another music festival in the city.
The video shows Paddock taking smaller loads of bags up to the the room–two at time–when not having hotel staff transport carts of bags for him. The video also highlights the fact that Paddock stayed with the bags when staff transported them for him.
Over the six days prior to the October 1 attack Paddock brings “at least 21 cases, two smaller bags, a lap top bag, and a container to his room.”
He took the elevator up to the 32nd floor October 1, hours before the attack began, and spent the day opening and closing, locking and unlocking the doors to his suite and the room next door. He locked the deadbolts for the last time four minutes before Jason Aldean took the stage in the Route 91 Harvest music festival.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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