MEDIA & TIMELINES ONLY - Mandalay Bay mass shooting in Las Vegas, 1 October 2017

In that interview, a woman identified as Brianna described a strange moment minutes before the shooting, where a woman and her boyfriend were kicked out of the concert by security after the woman warned some audience members that they were “all going to die,” or something to that effect.

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If the account of this interaction was accurate, it would certainly be eerie. But Buzzfeed talked to the firm in charge of security at Sunday night’s concert, who said that nothing of the sort happened.

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It appears that the people spreading this rumor are connecting the dots between the existence of Danley and a viral story from an early media interview with a witness.

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These people are not missing in Las Vegas after the shooting

The man pictured below is a *advertiser censored* star named Johnny Sins. The profile pic is of YouTuber TheReportofTheWeek, who was the victim of a similar viral hoax after the Manchester attacks.

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These are not the photos or names of the Las Vegas gunman

There’s a popular, right-wing meme that involves identifying Sam Hyde as the gunman in the immediate wake of a mass shooting. It happened after Las Vegas, too:

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A second person falsely identified as the shooter has also gone viral on the far-right Internet: Geary Danley

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The Israel National News, for a brief time, had a headline on their site claiming that authorities had identified the gunman as a recent convert to Islam.

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Although their story has since been updated to note that police actually have “no knowledge” of shooting suspect Stephen Paddock’s religious beliefs, the meme has continued to spread.

This rumor got a second wind Monday when the Islamic State, through the Amaq News Agency, claimed responsibility for the Las Vegas shootings, and that Paddock had converted to Islam months ago. But there’s some important context to keep in mind about claims like this from the Islamic State. I’ll quote directly from our main news story on the shootings to explain:

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, reporting through its Amaq news agency that the shooter was one of its “soldiers” and had recently converted to Islam, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist groups.

The group, also known as ISIS, often claims responsibility after attacks, even in cases where it is unclear whether they motivated them or were involved, and law enforcement officials on Monday disputed this claim.

“We have determined, to this point, no connection with an international terrorist group,” Aaron Rouse, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Las Vegas, said at a news briefing.

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Gunman Stephen Paddock was not an ‘Antifa’ operative

Another rumor about Paddock — for whom authorities have not disclosed a motive — circulating on the far-right is that he had ties to “Antifa,” the umbrella term for anti-fascist activist organizations. It appears to stem from a now-deleted post on a troll Facebook account posing as a page for the “Melbourne Antifa,” claiming that Paddock was a member.

A few evidence-free tweets have gone viral while repeating this claim.

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Meanwhile Infowars is simultaneously running with the Antifa and Islamic State stories, while suggesting that the whole attack might also be a false flag “scripted by deep state Democrats and their Islamic allies.”

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Marilou Danley was not a suspect, and she did not warn concert-goers they were “all going to die” before the shooting This is also being conflated with Brittany, the woman on the local news which as has been debunked. See top of post.

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Police said they were searching for a woman named Marilou Danley after the shooting, saying that they wanted to question her. But she was not described as a suspect — only a “traveling companion.” Public records indicate that Danley and Paddock lived at the same address.

Eventually, investigators said that they were able to locate and talk to Danley, and that they do not believe she was involved in the shooting. For one thing, she was found outside of the country, and was not with Paddock when he checked into the Mandalay Bay hotel, which also appears to debunk another viral tale that spread in the hours after the shooting:

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Tonight, for the first time you'll hear details of the assault from the officers who carried it out.

One week ago, just after 10 o'clock at night, 22,000 people became targets at a country music concert. Las Vegas detective Casey Clarkson was among them.


Casey Clarkson: The fire just starts hitting us. And you just hear--


(Body cam: They are shooting right at us, guys, everyone stay down, stay down.)


Casey Clarkson: I just remember, like, it was, like-- like, white spark, like, powder almost, like, hitting the concrete, hittin' the van. I mean, I'm just watching these rounds hit all, like, right next to us. And I'm like, "How is he so accurate?"

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Dave Newton --so many guns. So many magazines. Stacks and stacks of magazines everywhere. Just in suitcases all neatly stacked against pillars, around the room, all stacked up, rifles placed all throughout. All kinds of monitors and electrical equipment he had in there. It just looked like almost a gun store.

Joshua: Shell casings all over the floor. I could smell the-- gun powder that-- that had went off in the room. We were trippin' over guns. Trippin' over long guns inside. There was so many.


Bill Whitaker: That many.


Dave Newton: Yes.


Matthew Donaldson: My initial scan, coming in the room with my rifle is just seein' I'm seeing one male down, bleeding from the face. He was not a threat. Kept going, kept going, kept going.


Bill Whitaker: Said one male down. That was the shooter?


Matthew Donaldson: Yes.


Bill Whitaker: Stephen Paddock?


Bill Whitaker: What were his wounds?


Dave Newton: I didn't see any apparent wounds to his head. But I did see a lotta blood that had come outta his mouth.


Joshua Bitsko: There was-- a bloody revolver I think-- nearby. Nearby him that was on the ground consistent with him shootin' himself.

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Joshua Bitsko: Days of planning. Days of planning. He had tool boxes in power tools to run wires for his-- surveillance systems. For everything that he had, it took him days to finish.

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The Las Vegas gunman may have held target practise just days before carrying out the deadliest mass shooting in US history, reports claim.

Investigators have uncovered surveillance footage of Stephen Paddock driving alone into the desert on the Friday before the shooting, law enforcement officials told the Wall Street Journal. The remote area – located near his home in Mesquite, Nevada – is often used by locals for target practise.

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LAS VEGAS — The owner of a casino where Stephen Paddock gambled says the Las Vegas gunman didn’t drink alcohol or show any signs of trouble when he was a customer there.
Steve Wynn said in an interview on Fox News that Paddock had “the most vanilla profile one could possibly imagine.”

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The father of Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock was reportedly a self-ordained minister who carried out marriage ceremonies and wanted to start his own church as well as being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list of fugitives.In the search to understand the psychology of the mass murderer, attention has focused on the colourful criminal life of his father Benjamin Hoskins Paddock.

Although the killer had no previous criminal convictions and apparently lived in the shadows of society, rarely speaking to his neighbours, his father was a larger than life character, according to reports.

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National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre said on Sunday bump stocks, novelty devices that may have been used in the Las Vegas shooting, “fuzz the line” between semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons.



Chris Murphy: senator at heart of gun control push senses a change in debate
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Federal regulators need to draw a “bright line” when regulating such devices, LaPierre said on CBS’ Face the Nation, in an unusually defensive interview in which he blamed Hollywood, criminal justice reform, and the mental health system for the increasing carnage of America’s gun violence epidemic.


Gun control advocates in Congress continued to push for broader gun restrictions, saying that even if tougher laws might not have stopped the Las Vegas shooting, they would have an impact on the more than 80 Americans killed in gun suicides and homicides every single day.

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This year, the Ongs did not bring their young children to the event, but they said they plan on doing so when the kids are older as an educational experience.

They also felt that the mass shooting could bring about changes in gun control. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Wednesday proposed legislation that would ban the sale and possession of bump-stock equipment, which Paddock used to make his semiautomatic weapons fire like automatic weapons.

Republican Party leaders and the National Rifle Association said they will consider limiting bump stocks.

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LAS VEGAS (KABC) -- The woman who was seen with Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock days before the massacre was a prostitute, officials tell ABC News.

Authorities did not elaborate on the woman's identity.

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Jake Watkins knew instantly — he could tell from the first volley crackling out across the Strip — that it was gunfire, and he heard his father scream, “Get down!”

The 21-year-old former high school football player tackled a woman and her teenage daughter in front of him, bringing them down. He barely knew the pair, but he used his body as a shield to keep them from being hit by the barrage of bullets.


Jake peered up for a moment and saw his family ducking for cover. He looked down and saw the terrified face of the 15-year-old girl under him. A woman fell to the ground, maybe a foot in front of him. Her lifeless gaze met his.


She had brown eyes.


It was the beginning of the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. In those next few hours, the grounds of the Route 91 Harvest festival became a field of dead and wounded, many of the 22,000 concert attendees would use their own bodies to shield strangers and loved ones from the bullets. They used T-shirts to stop the bleeding, turned signs into stretchers and held friends in their arms as they died.

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"I could see on it he had written the distance, the elevation he was on, the drop of what his bullet was gonna be for the crowd," Newton said. "So he had that written down and figured out so he would know where to shoot to hit his targets from there."

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LAS VEGAS — Stephen Paddock was a contradiction: a gambler who took no chances. A man with houses everywhere who did not really live in any of them. Someone who liked the high life of casinos but drove a nondescript minivan and dressed casually, even sloppily, in flip-flops and sweatsuits. He did not use Facebook or Twitter, but spent the past 25 years staring at screens of video poker machines.

Mr. Paddock, a former postal worker and tax auditor, lived an intensely private, unsocial life that exploded into public view on Sunday, when he killed 58 people at a country music festival and then shot himself. But even with nationwide scrutiny on his life, the mystery of who he was has only seemed to deepen.

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[FONT=&quot]Some were big box chains. Some were mom-and-pop operations. But what’s clear so far is that all of the firearms in the two states were purchased legally by Paddock, a person familiar with the investigation said.[/FONT]

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Investigators said Friday that after five days piecing together the story of Stephen Paddock, they remained at a loss for what may have motivated him to open fire from his Las Vegas hotel suite, gunning down 58 people at a country music festival and injuring hundreds more.

Police say they have looked into more than 1,000 leads. Authorities have delved into Paddock’s gun purchases, computers and travel plans, spoken to his relatives and traced his actions leading up to the shooting.


What they lack, however, are answers explaining why a 64-year-old avid gambler meticulously planned and carried out out the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

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Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock had visited the Middle East during a series of cruises, police have revealed.

Investigators remain stumped as to Paddock’s motives but said he visited the contentious region on a cruise.


He also took at least 11 other cruises to other destinations over the last several years, the AP reported.

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Danley was interviewed by investigators for four hours Wednesday after she returned from the Philippines, where she was during the shooting. Her attorney, Matt Lombard, said after the interview that she had no knowledge of Paddock's plans. Lombard said Danley thought the large amount of money Paddock wired her was to buy a home -- and that he was going to break up with her.

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LAS VEGAS — The video poker machines that Stephen Paddock liked were the ones that did not draw attention. They had few look-at-me flashing lights or listen-to-me bells.

He would sit in front of them for hours, often wagering more than $100 a hand. The way he played — instinctually, decisively, calculatingly, silently, with little movement beyond his shifting eyes and nimble fingers — meant he could play several hundred hands an hour. Casino hosts knew him well.

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The National Rifle Association on Thursday endorsed tighter restrictions on devices that allow a rifle to fire bullets as fast as a machine gun — a rare, if small, step for a group that for years has vehemently opposed any new gun controls.

Twelve of the rifles the Las Vegas gunman, Stephen Paddock, had in a high-rise hotel suite when he opened fire on a crowd on Sunday were outfitted with “bump stocks,” devices that allow a semiautomatic rifle to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, which may explain how he was able to shoot so quickly, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds of others.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has ruled that bump stocks do not violate laws that tightly limit ownership of machine guns, and some lawmakers have called for them to be banned.

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