The Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino has released surveillance video footage that reveals the movements of Las Vegas shooting suspect Stephen Paddock’s final days leading up to the deadly October 1 massacre.
The New York Times obtained the surveillance footage from MGM Resorts, which operates the Mandalay Bay. Paddock had been staying in the hotel for a week before he opened fire from his suite on a group of 20,000 concertgoers, killing 58 and injuring hundreds.
The video footage compiled by the New York Times shows repeated scenes of the suspected gunman riding a guest elevator, and unloading, in several trips, the nearly-two dozen bags full of firearms and ammunition he brought to his 32nd room floor via service elevator, aided each time by unwitting staff members who escorted him and helped him get the luggage to his room. Some of the footage appears to show Paddock chatting and laughing with hotel staff, and sliding them money for a tip.
Other footage shows Paddock playing video poker, the professional gambler’s game of choice, in the hotel casino. He would sometimes play all through the night before returning to his suite, always on his own. At no point in the video footage is Paddock seen with a companion, although he does interact with hotel and casino staff.
The New York Times video compilation incorporates reports based on cellphone data that tracked Paddock’s movements the week before the massacre, showing that he made several trips to his home in Mesquite during his week in Vegas, spending one night there and visiting a nearby gun range before heading back to Las Vegas.
Paddock reportedly kept a room at the Ogden Condominium Complex during the same week. The weekend prior to the Route 91 Harvest Festival, the Life is Beautiful music festival took place just outside of the Ogden. Search warrant records previously obtained by CrimeOnline show that Paddock had researched the earlier festival, suggesting that he may have been planning an attack there or perhaps treated it as a kind of practice run. During the week he stayed at the Mandalay Bay suite, he stopped twice at the Ogden on his way in and out of the city.
It is not yet known what Paddock was doing at the Ogden, but both visits appear to have been relatively brief.
The surveillance footage released to the New York Times does not appear to contain any material that might suggest Paddock’s motive.
Feature image: Stephen Paddock and hotel staff/New York Times video screenshot
