Among the many items found by investigator in Stephen Paddock’s Mandalay Bay hotel room after the murderer committed suicide: a piece of paper with numbers the shooter had written down.
A note with numbers written on it was found in Paddock’s room, a source close to the investigation told CNN on Friday. The New York Times reported that authorities are trying to analyze the meaning, but Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department didn’t elaborate on whether they are significant or not.
Now investigators believe the numbers were ballistic calculations Paddock had done to improve the accuracy of his shots on the concert crowd below.
A law enforcement official says investigators believe a note found in the Las Vegas shooter’s hotel room contained a series of numbers that helped him calculate more precise shots.
The official says Saturday that the numbers found on a note on a nightstand included the distance between the high-rise hotel room that Stephen Paddock was using as a perch and the concert the victims were attending.
So Paddock took the time to calculate distance and bullet drop in order to be more precise…and then used at least one of twelve bump-fire equipped rifles which are notoriously inaccurate.
According to CNN, he also likely intended to use tracer ammunition.
Paddock tried to buy tracer ammunition at a gun show in the Phoenix area in recent weeks, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN.
Paddock bought other ammunition at the show, but he couldn’t obtain the tracer ammunition — bullets with a pyrotechnic charge that, when the round is fired, leaves an illuminated trace of its path — because the vendor didn’t have any to sell, the official said.
Had Paddock acquired and used tracers during the attack, that might have given away his position to law enforcement before the gunfire tripped the in-room smoke detector, which directed a security guard to investigate. According to reports, Paddock shot himself after firing 200 rounds at the security guard as the unarmed guard approached the room.
Can’t we take this out on his brother?
Probably not, the “girlfriend” seems like a low wattage bulb, the brother is just a few higher than her.
What a disgusting comment.
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Wow. I guess you’d prefer we’d go back to the days where we judged people upon who their father was.
His father was a convicted bank robber and diagnosed psychopath that spent time on the FBI 10 Most Wanted List.
LOL, yeah, not a great example for making your point there, Hank hahaha
@ Jeremy S
Yeah, when wrote that first comment, I knew the fathers background along with the younger brothers, that his past legal problems included:
— Criminal threats
— Arson
— Vandalism
— Petty theft
— Burglary
— Weed
— Driving on a suspended license
— Contempt
It makes one wonder what was going on in that family. Quite obviously we can’t take it out on the brother and I was only being facetious.
His brother said he was a ‘numbers man’ of sorts, so sounds about right.
Really? Accuracy and a bump stock?! please
This. Makes no freekin sense. Just another avenue for the libs to ban (math) precision scopes, range finders IR Lasers, etc., …
Don’t worry, DZ and RF can probably find a reason to keep them around so they won’t tolerate their confiscation. Bump fire stocks, though, are apparently okay to confiscate because some people don’t see their usefulness.
I read this once, “shall not be infringed”. I wonder what that means?
Libs threw out Math some time back with Common Core. Unfortunately this guy was old enough he went through school when they still taught math.
“Ballistics calculations+Bullet drop+ room surveillance cameras+ guns x CIA+Project Weeping Angel x Big Government-Ed Snowdon=Deep State……”
“Had he acquired and used tracers during the attack, that might have given away his position to law enforcement before the gun fire tripped the in-room smoke detectors, which directed a security guard to investigate.”
Yeah, and the tracers would have allowed him to ‘walk’ his fire into heavier concentrations of people, as well…
That seems… inconsistent…
Maybe the ballistic calcs were for the avgas tanks 300 yards further away that he apparently shot but didn’t explode.
They were Jet A, basically kerosene.
Ah. Thanks.
Stuff burns like Water
He could have shot those tanks all day and nothing would happen except for some small holes and leaks to patch later. Even with tracers.
If he’d intelligently placed the tannerite and some accelerant, perhaps there was a risk. I would hope the airport looks into the issue.
I’m stuck in the same place I was the day the thing happened: I absolutelly cannot imagine how a large flat field, surrounded by fencing, densely packed with 22,000 people, can be made at all secure when it has a few thousand hotel windows high above and within range, windows for rooms full of transients. This is elementary.
The risk for terrorism, in the absence of a psychopath, was still very high. I think justifying the venue simply because it was cheap and at a transportation hub was obscene.
Keep in mind that none of those hundreds of windows are designed to open, hence the sledge hammer to break them out. It would not surprise me if he had to soften them up a bit with a few bullets before even the hammer would knock them out.
If anybody was even thinking about such an event they would have been concerned about securing the rooftops, not if someone would break out 800 pound tempered glass windows.
Ban hammers! Ban windows! Ban math!
Jeremy – Trust me, they’re trying to ban math – that’s what Common Core is all about.
Happily, most of the teachers at mu school are conducting an underground guerrilla campaign to teach real math notwithstanding diktats from the State.
This sicko wasn’t the only one firing guns in Las Vegas.
The fact that bullet strikes were discovered in the tanks doesn’t mean this sicko fired them.
Unless a bullet that can be traced to this sicko’s guns can be found (good luck with that), it is mere speculation that this sicko fired them.
Remember this: confirmation is important. Speculation is supposed to lead to investigation, not reporting as “fact.”
Strange about the tracers, as they’re readily available via mail order. A simple Ammoseek search turns up 21 options for 5.56 NATO, for instance.
He may have had a lot of guns, but this villain apparently wasn’t a “gun guy” in the sense one usually means the phrase.
I’m open to correction, but it sounds like he was doing his transactions in person and in full gray man style.
A couple reports say he shot the fuel tanks across the way a couple times. Maybe he wanted the tracers in hopes of getting those to go off. Or maybe just for tracking where his shots were going as they were intended.
Why all the hate on bumpfire stocks?
I have a lot of experience on full auto rifles and machine guns and I have two bumpfire stocks and use them all the time.
My nickname at my old gun club was “the gardener” as I would just sweep the slide fire equipped AR with a 60 round sure fire magazine back-and-forth at the base of the berm kicking up the dirt
I used to do the same thing with my friends registered Tommy gun
Bumpfire stocks take a little practice to get used to, but once mastered, they work perfectly.
When it’s a large area target like base of hill or Human wave attack Full Auto has its place
Even militaries have very little use for Full Auto fire, and when used, it’s often in 3 to 5 round bursts with tracers every 3rd round
The bumpfire does turn your rifle into a full auto with all the advantages and disadvantages of any other automatic rifle
When fired from the standing position it tends to rise and overheat if mag dumps are used
Three round burst allows you to get back on target and reduces the rate of overheating
Maybe the “ballistic calculations” were actually Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi’s phone number.
this whole thing sounds more and more fishy by the day. the brother swore up and down that he had no interest in guns and didn’t know much about them. then we learn he has 40+ firearms worth up to $50k in some estimates. he had high end scopes, bipods, extended mags and things your common person with “no interest in guns” would know nothing about. now on top of it all we learn he went through the trouble to calculate ballistic coefficients, but then used a bump fire stock which would have made them worthless? none of this makes sense
Also, if you haven’t used a bumpfire stock before- they require a certain amount of skill. It’s a low bar but you can’t just pick one up and start shooting without a lot of stoppages. The guy had practiced a LOT.
Not true about needing a lot of practice on a slide fire. I had 3 round bursts figured out in less then half a mag. And with an eotech sight accuracy was good, for 3 round bursts.
Good for you. As I said, it’s a low bar but he was rattling out long unbroken streaks and you don’t just pick it up and do that.
If you take into account the idea that the brothers maybe didn’t really interact all that often and the living brother is just taking center stage to keep the cameras away from the rest of the family, quite a bit of things start making sense… he’s clearly a bonehead making up things on the spot – rather than saying “I don’t know” he tries to fill in the blanks to prevent the media from harassing the rest of the family.
I’ve got a sister living less than an hour away but we only see each other 2-3 times a year and *barely* catch up when we do. At any given time, I’d be guessing as to if she’s still with the guy shes been dating for years, still at the same job, still at the same address, etc. We don’t hate each other or anything of the sort… we’ve just never been that close. If anything ever happened to her in a way where the media wanted to hound my family, I’d probably be doing the same thing to prevent my parents from being harassed and I’m sure most other people would, as well.
TL;DR – the living brother is bullshitting us (for a reasonable reason) and he probably knew his brother marginally better than we all do.
Other than my kids, no one in my family knows how many guns I own. By the same token, I don’t know how many my brother owns, other than at at least one shotgun (he likes to hunt pheasant and doves) and an Anschutz pellet rifle that he picked up in Germany. People seem to think that if you are related, you know your relatives’ inner-most secrets. Nonsense.
Not seeing how its strange that his brother would think he wasn’t a “gun guy”. My sister knows I have guns. But she has no idea how many. She would freak if she did.
Ban ballistic calculations. The NRA is about to issue a statement calling for the ATF and the Department of Education to evaluate pertinent regulations.
No worries, the public schools have replaced math with gender diversity lessons. Ballistic calculations, as are all mathematical processes, rapidly becoming an endangered species.
Yeah…. when you “spray and pray,” those calculations are important! LOL!
Ban ballistic calculators / calculations!
Hopefully it said 5.56 minimum hold over 28.9″ at 415 Yards, wind drift 9-19″ @10 to 14 mph and energy of a 9mm upon impact.
Yeah, those 29″ made all the difference, I’m sure. I imagine the calcs. were for the jet fuel tanks at a range of 900 yards. Either that, or the guy was really daft.
“… Either that, or the guy was really daft….”
Or the feds who set up this fiasco know they can con 80% of the population and 99.9% of the media (actual knowledgeable gun-writers not included) with BS about the guy’s skill and masterful planning.
Just more signs that we need common sense regulation on Assault Math, right now – we have to do something!
Weapons of math destruction.
^^^ wins internetz for the day! ^^^
Yep, now there gonna ban Kestrels.
They might be little , but they’re bad ass
OMG! Are these those “Weapons of Math Destruction” Dubya kept going on and on about?
Is it possible they were referring to a range card? Remember, were dealing with alot of people who still use the terms ‘assault weapon’ and ‘shoulder thing that goes up’, so lets not get too wrapped up in terminology yet.
According to the news, he was staying at the hotel prior to the shooting so he had plenty of time to determine his firing point, determine blind spots, and get a general pace count for the area.
When I was still in the Army, this was a standard tactic when it came to setting up a complex ambush, or defensive firing position. This would have been a pretty logical tactic considering his method of engagement (mass volume of fire concentrated on a mid range, area target), and he pretty much went by the book; set up defensive perimeter, establish fields of fire, prepare and deploy equipment, engage targets, egress when necessary.
Regardless of which is true, it shows that he was at the bare minimum, conscious of small unit tactics, or ballistics. For not being trained or into guns, the more we find out about this guy, the more by bullshit detector goes off.
He did an okay job but it wasn’t super well-thought-out. As noted, he used a lot of 5.56 and not the 7.62×51. He didn’t buy tracer ammo in advance. He had some tannerite, but didn’t have a lot or use it as a truck bomb. He didn’t create diversions at other locations to draw the police away. Booking the room in his own name meant that even if he had escaped, he wouldn’t have made it far.
Paddock had several (at least three seen in photos) Daniels Defense DD5 V1 AR types in 7.62×51. These sell for around $3K each. I’m glad he didn’t uses those in any capacity… Unlike the 5.56mm, the 7.62 cartridge isn’t marginal at 500 yards. Firing a lot less rounds, the death total could have been substantially higher. Paddock had scopes on these, which probably means that he sighted them in at some point…
Paddock, did a hell of a job stiring the shit pot. Just when we won the war of 94 , this asshole starts another one
I tend to believe that was his point.
Whether a fascist political fantasy guy or sympathizer with terrorists, what more effective action could he take than to create a scene of mass death, and with piles of weapons laying about? His actions would obviously, even to him perhaps, stimulate some further anti-gun restrictions. That is exactly what the left/terrorists want and need.
As to the sacrifice of his own life to a sick cause, I don’t think he even felt life was anything special, even his own. Just numbers.
There’s no doubt he planned this over some time. It wasn’t a spur of the moment attack because he woke up pissed off one morning.
People who decide to do something bad do tend to try to plan it if they’re a planning type of person. And they can become obsessed with every detail while still forgetting certain things and messing up.
Don’t ask me how I know.
It appears he had 4 cameras. One on the cart pointed at the elevator/hall, another one on the cart pointed at the stairwell, one attached to the suite’s double door and one in the connecting room.
He had ~9 rifles (maybe more) in the suite. He had put two chairs together to keep the rifles at reach and out of the way. He stacked at least 15 100 round Surefire mags (from his suitcase) next to the pillar and the chairs that contain his rifles. He broke the window next to the pillar (I assume because it would allow for more cover).
It looks like he was surveilling the concert from the window next to the suite’s bedroom until he decided to start his attack. He went into the connecting room (where it seems he hid his gear from hotel staff) to break the window using a mallet and fire on the crowd and airport fuel tanks with an AR-15 using a 100 round Surefire mag (at ~10:05pm). The fuel tanks didn’t explode, so he decided to move on to his 2nd firing position after the first mag dump, he locked the door behind him leaving a camera inside just in case they make entry into the connecting room first. About 35 seconds after the first mag dump, he busts the 2nd window with the mallet and fires another AR-15 with a Surefire 100 round mag at the confused crowd. After the 2nd mag dump it seems he is trying to reload another 100 round mag from his cache next to the pillar. He fires ~11 Surefire mags within 10 minutes of the initial shots. Sometime between those 11 mag dumps (possibly at 10:09pm) he fires through the suite’s door at the security guard. After firing at the security guard he continues firing at the crowd until ~10:15pm. When he realizes the police have arrived he uses his revolver to shoot himself in the head.
The police waited ~1 hour for SWAT to setup a breach charge and make entry. They find the shooter dead as they clear the suite. They notice the connecting room’s door is locked, they use a 2nd charge to make entry and clear.
It seems the shooter had no intention of having a shootout with SWAT. He could have put up a hard fight with the hundreds of rounds he had left.
It appears the shooter moved to Nevada a couple of years ago. He met a women in Nevada and provided her a expensive lifestyle in exchange for companionship. He spent those years acquiring funds and gear. He bought 33 guns within 12 months. He collected 100 round Surefire mags, bump fire stocks, optics and pounds of tannerite. He did some recon on upcoming public events and rented out a place overlooking the 2017 “Life is Beautiful Festival” a week prior to the “Route 91 Harvest Festival” attack.
It’s possible Paddock thought about committing a large scale attack before moving to Nevada. While in Nevada he could have committed to the idea and went around finding targets while stocking up.
This video shows what sounds like the first shots at ~10:04:24pm. There was about 4 aimed shots at the crowd closes to Gate 6 and Gate 5 (the range card probably was for this). Those exits lead to Giles St. and Ali Baba Ln. There are parking lots across Giles St., which are a few hundred meters from the airport fuel tanks. It appears he wanted to get the crowd to run towards the fuel tanks. He might of had the idea of placing Tannerite in the parking lot via canisters or his own vehicle.
Approximate timeline:
3:12s – First shot @ 10:04:24pm
3:17-3:19s – 2nd-4th shot @ 10:04:29-10:04:31pm
3:20s – Pause in fire @ 10:04:32pm
3:51s – 1st bump fire @ 10:05:03pm
4:39s – 2nd bump fire @ 10:05:50pm
5:06s – 3rd bump fire @ 10:06:18pm
5:35s – 4th bump fire @ 10:06:47pm
7:32s – 5th bump fire @ 10:08:44pm
8:22s – Security shot @ 10:09:34pm
8:44s – 6th bump fire @ 10:09:55pm
9:19s – 7th bump fire @ 10:10:30pm
9:54s – 8th bump fire @ 10:11:05pm
10:20s – 9th bump fire @ 10:11:31pm
11:16s – 10th bump fire @ 10:12:27pm
12:35s – 11th bump fire @ 10:13:46pm
13:01s – 12th bump fire @ 10:14:13pm
13:55s – Suicide with revolver in mouth @ 10:15:06pm
Funny, it certainly sounds like overlapping shots being fired by multiple assailants!
Easily accounted for by echos from mountains and closer tall buildings.
There is absolutely no (at this time) evidence of any other people actually involved with the shooting.
It’s a few things happening in tandem, the initial gunshots, multi-path ‘echos’ as the sound bounces off other buildings and the sonic booms of the projectiles.
And commenters here who have been under fire in combat have noted incoming fire can sound ‘weird’…
There were no closer tall buildings. A cursory search on Google maps will show this.
The Luxor is a pyramid. it will reflect sound up and away. There are no other large buildings near the Mandalay Bay.
The mountains are a good distance away, and with some cursory math, it is clear that the reflected sound would have taken quite a bit of time to return. This is all easily confirmed with Google maps and their handy measurement tool.
The echo theory simply does not hold water.
See? Math can be used for good.
There might be some evidence of a would be shooter that decided to not follow through with the attack. There is a possibility this could be proven with forensics, which takes awhile (if it’s ever done).
The only things that lead me to think there was a second person there at the time of the shooting are: the AR on the floor next to the suite’s door, the 4th camera, the door alarm going off early, the plan to fire on fuel tanks (and crowd) with tracers as the crowd run to their cars, the 50lbs of Tannerite in the car, the large amount of guns divided between two firing stations.
They can search for finger prints throughout the room and on the gear. They can look for DNA. They can check where the gunpowder residue is and how much there is per area. They might be able to get some foot prints on the hard flooring. Check when the alarm was set off and fit that to the timeline. Test how long it took for him to move throughout the connecting room and suite. Figure out why there is an AR next to the door. Was there two mallets and was the windows broken with the mallet or bullets? Look at the casino camera footage…
I think the plan was more audacious than what happened. Luckily he wasn’t well trained and his plan was more Hollywood than realistic. He could have easily killed 58 people with a few 30 round mags, a scope and a bipod before people figured out what was happening. The Surefire mags and bump fire stocks reduced his success as it made him spray and pray like it was a video game. He fired off somewhere around 1200 rounds at a tightly grouped crowd, yet missed most of the people he shot at. His plan was more about terror than results. It doesn’t look like he even tried to kill police. He just wanted to go after that particular group. It looks like he had over 1000 rounds left, but when he saw the police in the hall he put his revolver in his mouth.
Usually when someone tries to shock and awe it’s more for a political reason than a personal one. I think his brother knows a lot more than he leads people to believe — the way he talks about his brother [admiration] and the evasive answers are suspect. Maybe if the media asked better questions the family would make a major slip up.
By the way, there would have been less deaths if people didn’t literally just stand there waiting to get shot and others deciding it’s a good idea to lay down under the bright lights when being fired upon from above.
Gundoc: They don’t have to be all that close. I’ve been to Vegas a lot of times, and any building, even a short one, will present echos. Plus, as others have pointed out, the sonic crack will make such noise.
Then, there’s the fake audio and video being put out, just so the fakers can see their work being taken seriously.
Thank you for providing a timeline, that video helps a lot. The several pre-shots are really interesting too as no other videos have shown that so far.
What I want to know is what was he doing for 2 full minutes during this time?
5:35s – 4th bump fire @ 10:06:47pm
7:32s – 5th bump fire @ 10:08:44pm
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbBEBzij1BE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqJZ4jpCZ40
Maybe he was in the first room up until that point, then he went into the suite and locked the connecting room’s door.
Observations–
He wanted the tracer rounds for the fuel tanks, which were confirmed to have been fired upon and hit.
He might have made the calculations, but found them irrelevant to just spraying into the crowd.
Quantity of rounds downrange > bumpfire inaccuracy.
To be honest, he could have done all this without any sort of automatic assist.
“…which were confirmed to have been fired upon and hit.”
Yes, but by whom?
There is no evidence that he fired the shots that hit the tanks other than the fact that the hits were found as a result of investigations into the shooting. They could have been the result of any of the other near-by shots fired during the days immediately prior to this shooting.
Las Vegas, like any other city, has numerous shots-fired calls every day.
If he had performed rapid aimed fire w/a scoped rifle, 1 shot per second, for 10 minutes, with a 50% hit rate, we’d be looking at over 100 dead easily.
So that’s the note explained. Now we need to know why they’re saying he checked in a day later, at least, than the receipt indicates and who the second room guest was.
Where is the hotel security camera footage??? Something is very wrong about the information we ARE NOT getting. The government is hiding a great deal from the public.
Where are the pictures of him checking into the hotel with his, 13 rifle cases??? Or the 3 or 4 thousand rounds of ammunition??? There is something very wrong going on.
Where is Alex Jones? FALSE FLAG! OBAMA PLANNED THIS!