Above: Las Vegas Metro Police and medical workers stage in the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard South after a mass shooting at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, US on October 1. Photo: UNI

Shooter, who was killed, had allegedly used automatic firearm from 32nd floor of nearby hotel to target concert-goers

In one of the deadliest massacres in the history of the United States, at least 50 people were gunned down and over 200 were injured in a country music concert near Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas late on Sunday (October 1).

Police killed the suspected shooter, 64-year-old Mesquite resident Stephen Paddock, who had been shooting from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, according to Sheriff Joe Lombardo, quoted in the local media.

While there is still chaos on the Las Vegas strip, police said that they believed they had also located Marilou Danley, a person of interest associated with Paddock.

The vehicles allegedly used by the suspects – a Hyundai Tucson, Nevada license plate 114 B40, and a Chrysler Pacifica Touring, Nevada license plate 79D 401 – were also found by the police, of whom, one off-duty officer, watching the concert was also killed in the shooting.

It was late in the night, the third and final night of the Route 91 country music festival which had been held on a 15-acre lot on Las Vegas Boulevard across from Mandalay Bay for the past four years when shots rang out. Some at first thought they were fireworks, before people started falling to the ground, shot, many fatally.

Gunfire came from an automatic weapon, with rumours saying that there was probably more than one shooter. That turned out to be false. One person at the concert, Ivetta Saldana, has been quoted in the media as saying that it was a “horror show.” She said she saw “people were standing around, then they hit the floor.”

Hotels were put under lockdown, roads were closed and the police have asked people to avoid the south Strip.

The shooting, according to another concert-goer, was “relentless”.  There were people lying on the road, bleeding, and there were few daring to go and help them, because the shooting did not stop.

At this point it is not clear why the man shot at concert-goers and who the man was.

—India Legal Bureau