LAS VEGAS, NEVADA (U.S)-
Police in Las Vegas and NEVADA are looking for motive behind the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in recent U.S. history.
The attacker, identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, opened fire from his 32nd floor hotel room on a crowd of 22,000 people at a country music festival on the Las Vegas strip. At least 59 people were killed and 527 others wounded.
“He was a sick man, a demented man, a lot of problems, I guess, so we’re looking into him very, very seriously, but we’re dealing with a very, very sick individual,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday when commenting on the assailant, who took his own life.
The president also commended law enforcement and first responders.
“And what happened in Las Vegas is in many ways a miracle. The police department has done such an incredible job,” he said, adding that the issue of gun laws will be discussed “as time goes by.”
Police have recovered 23 firearms from Paddock’s Mandalay Bay hotel room and found another 19 guns at one of his homes.
“We’re hunting down and tracing down every single clue that we can get in his background,” Clark County Assistant Sheriff Todd Fasulo told reporters Monday.
According to VOA, Fasulo reiterated that authorities believe Paddock acted alone and that there were no known threats to Las Vegas.
At an earlier briefing, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said, “I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath at this point.”
Paddock’s brother, Eric, is just as baffled as police by his motive. He said the family is “horrified and bewildered.”
He said his brother was a wealthy man with no known political or religious affiliations, no ties with white supremacists and no history of mental illness.
“Where the hell did he get automatic weapons? He’s a guy who lived in a house in Mesquite and drove down and gambled in Las Vegas,” Eric Paddock said.
Eric Paddock also said their father was a bank robber who was at one time on the FBI’s most wanted list. The FBI called him psychopathic and dangerous. But that the brothers had no contact with their father.
Islamic State claimed responsibility, saying the gunman was one of its “soldiers” and converted to Islam months ago. The FBI says there is no evidence Paddock was tied to any international terror group.
WEB DESK