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Here’s What Police Found in the Las Vegas Shooter’s Room and Car

October 03, 2017
Staff

WRITER

We still don’t know why Stephen Paddock decided to kill dozens of people by firing into a crowd at a Las Vegas music festival. Police haven’t yet pointed to a motive, and the horrifying event left his own family “dumbfounded.”

But we’re learning more about how terrifyingly overprepared the gunman was and how the situation could have been even worse. It’s possible he was trying to prepare a bomb based on what police discovered in his vehicle that was parked at the Mandalay Bay hotel.

Standing in for Glenn on today’s show, Doc and Kris talked about the list and covered what we know so far about the shooting.

  • 23 weapons were stashed in the gunman’s room.

  • Two tripods were positioned at the hotel windows and described as a “sniper’s nest.”

  • Hundreds of rounds of ammunition were also at the ready.

  • 10 suitcases were also in the room; police believe they were used to bring in the weapons.

  • Ammonium nitrate, which is used in bomb-making, was found in his car.

"We don’t know how far along he was in a bomb-making process," Doc said.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

DOC: First an update on what happened yesterday. Fifty-nine people now dead. The death toll at 59. The number injured 527. Five hundred twenty-seven people injured. Fifty-nine people dead at the hands of 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, who began shooting Sunday night from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel.

His brother said he was a millionaire and recently even won a $40,000 jackpot. The FBI said there's no apparent tie to international terrorism. Twenty-three guns were found inside the room, including at least one handgun. Some of the guns even had scopes. Thousands of rounds of ammunition still found there.

He had a camera mounted in the hotel room to record himself. Now, we've not heard reports if he actually recorded himself, if a video exists. Likely, we would never see if it is.

KRIS: I think that's a big fail. Not showing -- if there is a video out there, not showing that video is a big fail.

DOC: I think you're right.

KRIS: Just like they did not release the audio from the Pulse Nightclub, when he called. They show you just a little bit, but they don't actually show that he actually stayed on the line and you could hear back and forth.

DOC: Right. I think that actually helps make the case that this is a problem and we need to think this through and do some things.

KRIS: It does.

DOC: I don't think it's insensitive. But he did have a camera mounted in there.

Ammonium nitrate was found in his automobile. Ammonium nitrate is a component of some fertilizers. That's what this was, a fertilizer of ammonium nitrate. And that's also what was used partially to take down the federal building in Oklahoma City, at the hands of Tim McVeigh. It was ammonium nitrate fertilizer and also kerosene. We don't know how far along he was in a bomb-making process. I think it's fairly safe to say that if you shoot 600 people, that you probably -- if you had ammonium nitrate in your car, you probably were going to use it to create a bomb. It wasn't like, no, I just happened to have ammonium nitrate. It had nothing to do with that.

KRIS: I went to the store Lowe's.

DOC: On my way to kill people.

KRIS: I forgot to unload that up at the house.

DOC: The fertilizer, it should have been. I was going to garden tomorrow. I don't think that's what happened.

Inside his home in Mesquite, Nevada, about 80 miles from Las Vegas, they found another 18 firearms, several thousands rounds of ammunition, and more explosives.

His 62-year-old live-in girlfriend was in Asia at the time. Now, we had heard reports early on, Monday morning, that she was arrested, she was a person of interest, and that they had arrested her. That is not the case.

Law enforcement in Las Vegas says, if she returns to the United States, they, of course, will have some questions for her. But at this point, they say she was in Asia. We don't know if she had any knowledge of this. But she wasn't there when it happened. Officers, as they approached the hotel room to investigate what was going on, he opened fire on them. But these were Las Vegas police officers.

The officers that broke in and found him dead were S.W.A.T. officers. So it was a different team. So at first he did fire on them. He hit one officer in the leg. But then they backed off, waited for S.W.A.T. In the meantime, he killed himself. S.W.A.T. goes in and takes him down.

There was some confusion. And Kris and I all day yesterday afternoon could not understand why there were two windows out in the hotel.

Well, we know -- we knew that he was likely shooting out of them because it gave him an advantage. But was it two rooms? They were pretty far apart.

KRIS: Yeah, and one thing I told you, like, I don't want nobody from the FBI to search my computer, because it was three hours of searching floor plans. So I was -- Mandalay Bay floor plans. Thirty-second floor. Corner window.

DOC: Then followed up -- then different firearms and ammonium nitrate and Tim McVeigh. Yeah, we're on a bunch of radar screens today.

KRIS: Yeah, we triggered.

DOC: So we looked it up, and as it turns out, he had a suite that was at one end of the hotel, facing the north end of the strip. So if you were looking out his windows across diagonally at the venue that he fired upon, the window to the left -- again, looking out at the hotel looks north down the street. Then he had the window that was due east. The venue that he fired on would have been to the northeast of the building. The reason it was two buildings, it was either one giant suite with two bedrooms or a connecting room. Now, that's important because I had questions about, okay, if those are two separate rooms, which they even led with in some of the news, did he run down the hall? What was going on? How did --

KRIS: Yeah, then it goes back to, this is a 64-year-old man. Does he have the stamina to go back and forth?

DOC: To go back and forth. And what's going on? So they were at least connected. And he did set up -- they said he broke the glass of the windows, likely with a hammer-like device, which I don't know why he wouldn't just shoot through it, but okay. What is a hammer-like device, Kris?

KRIS: From what I'm thinking, you know those tactical hammers that police use when they're trying to break into a window? That's what I think.

But, you know, I want to give it to this guy. He was trying to be classy.

DOC: He didn't just through it. He wasn't a barbarian when he executed 59 people? Gotcha.

KRIS: No, no, no. He wanted to go out and do it the proper way.

DOC: Here's the bizarre and strange part of this: Still, we have no motive. What was his motive in this thing? It's really important. What was his motive?

While a lot of people are focusing on the method of murder, the guns. And melting down about the method. The how.

The why is much more important. The why is more important because that's how we stop future mass murderers like this. The how, you're never going to stop every way you can mass murder people. Take away all guns. What about the knives? Take away the knives. What about the golf clubs? Take away the golf clubs.

What about baseball bats? Take all of those away. What about heavy, blunt objects? What about -- what about rocks? What about your fists? You can pummel someone to death.

There are limitless ways you can murder, even on large scales. Remember, the most significant mass murders on American soil took place without guns.

9/11, it was box-cutters. Tim McVeigh, it was ammonium nitrate and kerosene. The attack on the school in Bathe, Michigan. The most deadly attack on a school in American history was a bomb. It was not guns. You can murder countless ways. So the how is not really as important as the why.

When you get the why, then you can start determining how we change it in the future. What makes somebody do something like this? Why do you do it?

This guy -- this dirtbag Stephen Paddock, does not fit any of the traditional profile. None of the obvious. What are the traditional profiles of a mass murderer like this?

KRIS: Loner.

DOC: Loner. Brooding Loner. Adam Lanza. Sandy Hook, right? The crazy, brooding loner. Everyone knew he had problems. Stole the gun from his mom.

KRIS: Crazy eyes.

DOC: Oh, crazy eyes. James Holmes in Aurora, right? He was a loner. And also had the crazy eyes. This guy is not a loner. He had a live-in girlfriend. He got along. He was social.

KRIS: He was a millionaire. You know, an alleged millionaire.

DOC: Okay. That brings up something else. A lot of these people, especially the ones that are radicalized, based on faith from the Middle East, the radical Muslims, are people that are radicalized partially because they are poor. They look at poverty and their own and they want to pretend -- why try to help everybody, it's not fair that some people -- what they really mean is, it's not fair that I don't have what other people have.

This guy may -- according to his brother -- was a millionaire. So he wasn't that. Young. That's another one. A lot of the Muslim terrorists, the extremist Muslims, they're young guys. Adam Lanza, James Holmes, young. This guy is 64.

KRIS: Yeah.

DOC: Sixty-four. That doesn't apply. Oh. Crazy. Certifiable -- no. Never been determined yet. A pilot's license. Which means he at least had a review of his mental state in order to get a pilot's license.

KRIS: Well, not just that, he was able to purchase guns from different salesmen. So how do you able -- if you're that crazy, how are you able to get different guns from different dealers?

DOC: The people who sold it to him, his family, his friends, anybody who knew him, nobody has come forth and said, "Oh, yeah. That guy was crazy."

KRIS: What about this one? Caring. He called his brother to check on his mom.

DOC: Check on his mom. How is mom doing? He doesn't fit any of the profiles. So what is going on? What happened?

I've come up with a couple of basic thoughts on this, as far as motive goes. That unless there's something we don't know -- remember the guy who shot up the tower in 1966 in Texas, in Austin. He had a tumor in his head, I think. Had been fairly normal. Wrote that even he didn't know why he was having these crazy thoughts --

KRIS: He started questioning himself.

DOC: Right. Outside of something like that or aliens or some grand conspiracy theory that he wasn't really responsible, the government did it, and just pinned it on him or something -- outside of that, likely the information we've gotten from his brother and everyone else is inaccurate. Maybe he had financial trouble. Oh, his brother said, no rabid political or religious viewpoint.

KRIS: Church.

DOC: Church, religion, none of those. Well, maybe his brother didn't know him as well. He was leading a double life or something. Maybe he had fallen on hard times financially.

Likely, some of the information we've gotten is not accurate.

I think he did it for political reasons. Purely, my speculation at this point. But we don't know why.

I want to get some of your calls on that. And tell me, what do you think it is? We'll speculate a little bit.

The Deep State's NEW plan to backstab Trump

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move.

In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. Conservatives cheered, believing we’d taken back the reins of our country. But we missed the bigger battle. We failed to recognize the extent of the damage caused by eight years of Barack Obama and decades of progressive entrenchment. The real war isn’t won at the ballot box. It’s being waged against an insidious force embedded deep within our institutions: the administrative state, or the “deep state.”

This isn’t a new problem. America’s founders foresaw it, though they didn’t have a term for “deep state” back in the 1700s. James Madison, in Federalist 48, warned us that combining legislative, executive, and judicial powers in the same hands is “the very definition of tyranny.” Yet today, that’s exactly where we stand. Unelected bureaucrats in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice hold more power than the officials we vote for. They control the levers of government with impunity, dictating policies and stifling change.

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege.

We’ve felt the consequences of this growing tyranny firsthand. During COVID-19, so-called experts ran our lives, crushing civil liberties under the guise of public safety. Our intelligence agencies and justice system turned into weapons of political warfare, targeting a sitting president and his supporters. Meanwhile, actual criminals were given a pass, turning American cities into lawless war zones.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 that “the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.” Today, we see Jefferson’s prophecy fulfilled. The deep state exercises unchecked power over our freedoms, and information itself is controlled by the fourth branch of government: the legacy media.

Even when we win elections, the deep state doesn’t concede defeat. It switches to survival mode. Trump’s first term proved this. Despite a historic mandate to dismantle the bureaucracy, the deep state fought back with everything it had: leaks, investigations, court rulings, and obstruction at every turn. And now, with the possibility of Trump returning to office, the deep state is preparing to do it again.

Progressives are laying out their attack plan — and they’re not even hiding it.

U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) recently boasted about forming a “shadow cabinet” to govern alongside the deep state, regardless of who’s in the White House. Nickel called it “democracy’s insurance policy.” Let’s be clear: This isn’t insurance. It’s sabotage.

They’ll employ a “top down, bottom up, inside out” strategy to overwhelm and collapse any effort to reform the system. From the top, federal judges and shadow officials will block Trump’s every move. Governors in blue states like California and New York are gearing up to resist federal authority. During Trump’s first term, California filed over 100 lawsuits against his administration. Expect more of the same starting January 20.

From the bottom, progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union will flood the streets with protesters, much as they did to oppose Trump’s first-term immigration reforms. They’ve refined their tactics since 2016 and are prepared to unleash a wave of civil unrest. These aren’t spontaneous movements; they’re coordinated assaults designed to destabilize the administration.

Finally, from the inside, the deep state will continue its mission of self-preservation. Agencies will drag their feet, leak sensitive information, and undermine policies from within. Their goal is to make everything a chaotic mess, so the heart of their power — the bureaucratic core — remains untouched and grows stronger.

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move. Progressives never see themselves as losing. When they’re out of power, they simply shift tactics, pumping more blood into their bureaucratic heart. We may win elections, but the war against the deep state will only intensify. As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force; and force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege. The deep state has shown us its plan: to govern from the shadows, circumventing the will of the people. But now that the shadows have been exposed, we have a choice. Will we accept this silent tyranny, or will we demand accountability and reclaim our nation’s heart?

The battle is just beginning. We can’t afford to lose.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Drone mystery exposes GLARING government incompetence

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone issue is getting way out of hand.

Earlier this month, Glenn first reported on the mysterious drones stalking the night sky over New Jersey, but the situation is increasingly concerning as the sightings have escalated. Not only have drones been seen across the Northeast Coast, including over New York City, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but recently, they have been spotted over the night skies of San Diego and other parts of Southern California.

It doesn't take an expert to identify the potential dangers and risks that dozens of undetectable, unidentified six-foot or larger drones pose to national security. Yet, our government's response has been one of unimaginable incompetence, leaving us to speculate on the origin and intention of these drones and wonder in astonishment at the government's ineptitude. Here are three examples of the government's lackluster response to the mystery drones:

Iranian Mothership and Missing Nuclear Warheads

- / Stringer | Getty Images

After several weeks of hubbub, New Jersey Representative, Jeff Van Drew gave an interview on Fox News where he claimed that the drones originated from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States. This theory has since been disproven by satellite images, which show that all Iranian drone carriers are far from U.S. shores. Another theory suggests that drones may be equipped with sensors capable of detecting nuclear material and that they are looking for a nuclear warhead that recently went missing! With these apocalyptic theories gaining traction in the absence of any real answer from our government, one can't help but question the motive behind the silence.

Pentagon's Limp Wristed Response

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

In a recent press conference, national security spokesman John Kirby responded to reporters demanding answers about the government's lack of transparency, which has caused increasing public anxiety. He insisted that the drones did not pose a threat and were not assets of a foreign power, such as from Iran or China--even though he is still uncertain about their identity and origin. He also claimed that many of the sightings were simply misidentifications of normal aircraft.

This lackluster answer has only further inflamed national anxieties and raised even more questions. If the government is unsure of the identity of the drones, how do they know if they are a threat or if they aren't foreign assets? If they aren't foreign, does that mean they are U.S. assets? If so, why not just say so?

The Pentagon has also stated that they are leaving it up to local law enforcement to spearhead the investigation after concluding that these drones pose no threat to any military installation. This has left many feeling like the federal government has turned a blind eye to a serious issue that many Americans are very concerned about.

Where's Pete Buttigieg?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

We are in the closing weeks of the Biden administration, and with the finish line in sight, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg probably figured nothing else could go wrong on his watch—but boy was he wrong. As Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is in charge of the FAA, the agency responsible for managing all air traffic across the nation. One would think that mysterious, 6-foot-long, seemingly intractable drones are invisible on radar and flying above major cities would pose a serious threat to the myriad of legal aircraft that traverse our skies. Yet, Buttigieg has been silent on the issue, adding another failure to his resume which includes: malfunctioning airplanes, the train derailment in Ohio, and the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, just to name a few.

Glenn: How Alvin Bragg turned hero Daniel Penny into a villain

Michael M. Santiago / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty.

America no longer has a single, shared understanding of justice. Two Americas now exist, each applying justice differently depending on who you are and where you live. One America, ruled by common sense and individual courage, praises heroes who stand up to protect others. The other, driven by political agendas and corrupted institutions, punishes those same heroes for daring to act.

This stark division couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Daniel Penny, the Marine whose trial in New York City this week drew strong reactions from both sides across the divided line of justice.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare.

Penny was on a subway train last year when Jordan Neely — a man suffering from severe mental illness and reportedly high on drugs — began threatening passengers, saying, “I’m going to kill you all.” The fear on that subway car was palpable, but nobody moved. Nobody, that is, until Penny did what needed to be done. He took action to protect innocent lives.

In the America many of us used to believe in, Penny’s response would be heralded as heroic. His actions mirrored the courage of Todd Beamer on Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, rallied others with the words, “Let’s roll,” to prevent further tragedy. But in New York, courage doesn’t seem to count anymore. There, the system turns heroes into villains.

Penny subdued Neely using a chokehold, intending only to restrain him, not kill him. Tragically, Neely died. Penny, filled with remorse, told the police he never meant to hurt anyone. Yet, instead of being recognized for protecting others from a clear and present threat, Penny stood trial for criminally negligent homicide.

In Alvin Bragg’s New York, justice bends to ideology. The Manhattan district attorney has made a career of weaponizing the law, selectively prosecuting those who don’t fit his narrative. He’s the same prosecutor who twisted legal precedent to go after Donald Trump on business charges no one had ever faced before. Then, he turned his sights on Daniel Penny.

A jury may have acquitted Penny, but what happened in New York City this week isn’t justice. When the rule of law changes depending on the defendant’s identity or the prosecutor's political motives, we’re no longer living in a free country. We’re living in a state where justice is a game, and ordinary Americans are the pawns.

The system failed Jordan Neely

It’s worth asking: Where were activists like Alvin Bragg when Neely was suffering on the streets? Jordan Neely was a tragic figure — a man with a long history of mental illness and over 40 arrests, including violent assaults. The system failed him long before he stepped onto that subway train. Yet rather than confront that uncomfortable truth, Bragg’s office decided to target the man who stepped in to prevent a tragedy.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about power. It’s about advancing a narrative where race and identity matter more than truth and common sense.

It’s time to demand change

The Daniel Penny case — and others like it — is a wake-up call. We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty. Americans must demand an end to politically driven prosecutions, hold DAs like Alvin Bragg accountable, and stand up for the principle that true justice is blind, consistent, and fair.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare. It’s time to choose which America we want to live in.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

CEO Brian Thompson's killer reveals COWARDICE of the far-left death cult

Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Early on the chilly morning of Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of health insurance giant, UnitedHealthcare, was walking through Midtown Manhattan on his way to a company conference. Suddenly, a masked and hooded figure silently allegedly stepped onto the sidewalk behind Thompson, drew a 3-D printed, silenced pistol, and without warning fired multiple shots into Thompson's back before fleeing the scene on an electric bicycle. After a multiple-day manhunt, a 26-year-old lead suspect was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania after being recognized by an employee.

This was not "vigilante justice." This was cold-blooded murder.

As horrific as the murder of a husband and father in broad daylight in the center of New York City is, the story only gets worse. Even before the murder suspect was arrested, left-wing extremists were already taking to X to call him a "hero" and a "vigilante" who "took matters into his own hands." Even the mainstream media joined in on the glorification, as Glenn pointed out on air recently, going out of the way to show how physically attractive the murder suspect was. This wave of revolting and nihilistic fanfare came in response to the findings of online investigators who surmised the murder suspect's motives to retaliate against healthcare companies for corruption and denied coverage. The murder suspect supposedly underwent a major back surgery that left him with back pain, and some of his internet fans apparently viewed his murder of Thompson as retribution for the mistreatment that he and many other Americans have suffered from healthcare companies.

The murder suspect and his lackeys don't seem to understand that, other than depriving two children of their father right before Christmas, he accomplished nothing.

The murder suspect failed to achieve his goal because he was too cowardly to try.

If the murder suspect's goals were truly to "right the wrongs" of the U.S. healthcare system, he had every tool available to him to do so in a constructive and meaningful manner. He came from a wealthy and prominent family in the Baltimore area, became the valedictorian at a prestigious all-boys prep school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in engineering. Clearly, the murder suspect was intelligent and capable, and if he had put his talent into creating solutions for the healthcare industry, who knows what he could have accomplished?

This is the kind of behavior the far-left idolizes, like communists on college campuses who wear shirts that celebrate the brutal Cuban warlord, Che Guevara. Merchandise celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect is already available, including shirts, hoodies, mugs, and even Christmas ornaments. Will they be sporting his face on their T-shirts too?

This macabre behavior does not breed creation, achievement, success, or life. It only brings death and risks more Americans falling into this dangerous paradigm. But we still have a chance to choose life. We just have to wake up and take it.