Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock may have plotted further attacks including car bombing

Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock
AP
Patrick Grafton-Green5 October 2017

The Las Vegas gunman may have scoped out bigger music festivals before Sunday’s atrocity and planned further attacks including a car bombing.

US officials said on Thursday that in the days and months before the shooting, Stephen Paddock booked hotel rooms overlooking two other music festivals.

He booked rooms overlooking the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago in August and the Life Is Beautiful show near the Vegas Strip in late September, authorities said.

Police are still desperately trying to piece together his movements before he carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, which left at least 59 dead and more than 500 injured.

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It is still unclear why the high-stakes gambler opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 on Sunday night from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel casino in Las Vegas.

Investigators looking into Paddock also came across mention of Fenway Park, Boston police spokesman Mike McCarthy said, though he provided no further details.

Authorities previously disclosed that the 64-year-old had 1,600 rounds of ammunition in his car, along with fertiliser that can be used to make explosives and 50 pounds of Tannerite, a substance used in explosive rifle targets.

The profile developed so far is of a "disturbed and dangerous" man who acquired an arsenal over decades, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said. But investigators have been frustrated to find that he lived a "secret life," Mr Lombardo said, "much of which will never be fully understood".

The weekend before the massacre, he rented a room through Airbnb at the 21-storey Ogden condominiums in downtown Las Vegas and stayed there during a music festival below that included Chance the Rapper, Muse, Lorde and Blink-182.

"Reasons that ran through Paddock's mind is unknown, but it was directly at the same time as Life Is Beautiful," the sheriff said.

Police were reviewing video shot at the high-rise to check Paddock's movements. His renting the condo was curious because as a high-roller, he could have easily got a free room at one of the casino hotels on the Vegas Strip.

In early August, Paddock booked a room at Chicago's 21-storey Blackstone Hotel that overlooked the park where the Lollapalooza alternative music festival was being held, though there is no evidence he actually stayed there, a law enforcement official said.

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The hotel confirmed a Stephen Paddock made a reservation but said he never checked in.

Lollapalooza draws hundreds of thousands of music fans every year to Grant Park.

Although Paddock killed himself as a Swat team closed in, the sheriff said it appeared he had planned to survive and had an escape plan.

The news comes as the National Rifle Association (NRA) said bump-stocks used by Paddock to turn semi-automatic rifles into fully automated weapons should be subject to tougher regulations.

However the organisation, which holds a powerful sway over members of Congress, dismissed some of the initial response from lawmakers who pressed for more gun control.

The NRA said: "Banning guns from law-abiding Americans based on the criminal act of a madman will do nothing to prevent future attacks."

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