Mass Shooting -- Las Vegas -- 01OCT17

blacbird said:

Rather than start a new thread, it seems appropriate to post this here: The "truthers", sadly, have scuttled out from behind the baseboards. I saw a comment posted today that Stephen Paddock was shot three times in the back with a bolt-action rifle, and claiming that as absolute, unquestionable fact.

So where is this shite coming from? Is it an Alex Jones thing? In any case, I'm confident we'll see more of it, just like we did with the Sandy Hook atrocity.

caw

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It's sick. Now these people will have to deal with all the alt-reality folks saying that they didn't get injured or lose loved ones.

On a more positive note: I saw that at least three hospitals and two ambulance companies that have treated or are treating victims will not bill the patients anything above their insurance. They will rely on donations.

MM

The constant revision of the timeline by various sources does not bode well for a coherent investigation. I think LE screwed up by putting so much information out so soon. The American public has such a craving for knowing everything RIGHT NOW that they won't accept delays to make sure the information they're getting is right.

And I see that the security guard who was set to give 5 interviews last night bolted, and no one knows where he is at the moment.

cmhbob said:

The constant revision of the timeline by various sources does not bode well for a coherent investigation.

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This issue seems now to be settled, and the explanation reasonable. It is now accepted by all that Paddock started firing on the crowd no more than a minute after he shot through the door, wounding the hotel employee. The time of the initial report of gunfire was taken from a hastily handwritten note by an officer, and was just incorrect. It's hard to see anything that unfolded after that as being incompetent on the part of the law enforcement people. It took the SWAT team about half an hour to get to the place, get their strategy organized, and breach the hotel suite door. Which doesn't strike me as unusually long, given the complexity of what they needed to do, and the unknown circumstances they were faced with. Paddock stopped shooting after about ten minutes, and they found him dead when they entered. Presumably he had killed himself right after he stopped shooting.

One peculiarity that had occurred to me, a very unlikely one, is: Is it possible he shot himself accidentally? He was handling a lot of loaded weaponry in a big hurry. But, like I said, that seems very unlikely. Details on his manner of death will certainly be released, and probably satisfy this minor question.

caw

Just found out my nephew was there with his wife. Not at the concert but they were staying at the Mandalay. They had been at the Luxor gambling during the shooting. They weren't allowed back in their rooms, everyone was shuffled to the basement of the Luxor for the night (not sure if they stayed on cots or what). Free deli food was given to everyone. They were let back in their rooms the next day then left that night. What a pain if you were scheduled to leave that night and you couldn't get your stuff.

So bizarre. Of all the places, my son had been at the Mandalay at a conference the week before and here was my nephew there that night. I don't know how often my nephew goes to Vegas but my son never goes there. And for them both to be at the Mandalay, coincidences can be so weird.

Couple of interesting developments in the overall investigation today.

First, the hard drive is missing from the laptop found in the hotel room. That's actually not all that common. Sandy Hook and VT killers did the same thing with their digital media (damaged/destroyed/removed). I think others have as well.

Second, the killer's brother has been arrested in LA in a child porn investigation. The crimes allegedly occurred in 2014, and this investigation supposedly predates the shooting, but I can't help wondering if anything has a genetic component here. The father was absent for much of the boys' lives, and the elder Paddock was at one point called psychopathic in a wanted poster. The Las Vegas paper has an article talking about the possible genetic connections, but cautions against drawing any serious conclusions.

cmhbob said:

{...} I can't help wondering if anything has a genetic component here.

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This long lost quote has been running in my head since the shooting: Killing human beings is the ultimate bloodsport for someone who has nothing left to lose.

Underline mine.

-cb

cbenoi1 said:

This long lost quote has been running in my head since the shooting: Killing human beings is the ultimate bloodsport for someone who has nothing left to lose.

Underline mine.

-cb

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Thought-provoking. I'd love to learn more about the context.

cmhbob said:

The Las Vegas paper has an article talking about the possible genetic connections, but cautions against drawing any serious conclusions.

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Mental disorders and illnesses can indeed run in families, but dysfunctional upbringings can beget dysfunctional behavior for purely environmental reasons too. And of course the overwhelming majority of people with disorders, from any cause, don't become mass murderers. We may never know the answer to this, at least with regards to individual cases.

I heard a thing on the radio the other day by an expert on play who posited that one common denominator among some of the most violent criminals is not only abuse as children, but a very regimented, authoritarian childhood with a marked lack of free, unstructured play. His hypothesis is that play is needed for humans (and probably other mammals) to develop normally.

Interesting, but it's hard to rigorously test something where we're essentially cherrypicking data from a handful of cases. We don't don't how many people denied play in childhood develop relatively normally, since they don't end up "in the system."

All good points there. I've heard/read similar stuff on the effects of lack of freeplay as well.