Las Vegas Shooting Initial Report | Luggage, Rifles, Revolver and Ammo

Las Vegas Mass Murder Initial Report, Luggage, Rifles, Revolver and Ammunition
Las Vegas Mass Murder Initial Report, Luggage, Rifles, Revolver and Ammunition

Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- On 18 January 2018, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) released a preliminary report on the mass murder committed on 1 October 2017.

The report is unusual, a unique response to the public clamoring for facts after the shooting. Ordinarily, the LVMPD does not release information about an ongoing investigation.

This is an ongoing investigation and is not a complete report. However, the report lists a number of preliminary conclusions that many people will disagree with. Whether you disagree or not, the report contains a wealth of information and provides significant amounts of valuable data for those who are interested and attempting to understand the event, how it occurred, and what the shooter did in the years and weeks previous to the shooting from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

There are excellent diagrams and pictures of the scene and the layout that make clear many of the confusions about the event.

A detailed inventory of the firearms found in the Mandalay Bay suite consisting of rooms 32-135 and 32-134 provides significant information. Time references to the numerous times that the shooter took luggage to the suite makes it clear that there was no difficulty in the shooter bringing the 23 AR-15 and AR-10 clones, 1 bolt action .308 rifle with scope, and 1 revolver to the suite without fear of detection.

The shooter brought five suitcase bags with him on September 25th. The shooter rolled one bag, and a bellman took the other four bags on a luggage cart. On 26 September, the shooter brought six suitcases and one rolling suitcase to the Mandalay Bay. The six suitcases were brought up by lua ggage cart with a bellman. The rolling suitcase was brought by the shooter.  This movement of luggage was with a different bellman than on 25 September.

  • On 26th September the shooter was seen in the valet area of Mandalay bay with two rolling suitcases.  It appears he left the Mandalay Bay Resort with the two suitcases, then returned on 28 September with two rolling suitcases.
  • On September 30th, the shooter brought more suitcases to his room, which was now the suite of 32-135 and 32-134.
  • On October 1st, the shooter brought two more rolling suitcases and a bag into the Mandalay Bay Resort.

Over a week and in at least four different events, the shooter, using rolling suitcases, luggage carts, and bellmen, moved at least 17 pieces of luggage in the Mandalay Bay.

None of this was even remotely a cause for alarm. Those of you who have spent any time traveling and using hotels know that the movement of five, six, or seven large suitcases into room and suites is a commonplace occurrence.  All of the rifles found in the suite could easily be disassembled into components that can fit into a large suitcase.  Some of the suitcases may have been used more than once.

The report identifies all the rifles and the revolver by manufacturer and serial number.  There were 13 AR-15 clones with 100-round magazines and bump stocks. This meant that the shooter would never have had to change magazines to shoot the number of cartridges expended. One AR-15-type rifle had a 40-round magazine.  One AR-15-type rifle did not have a magazine in it.  That shows 15 AR-15-type rifles in the suite.

There were Six AR-10 clones with 25-round magazines and two AR-10 clones without magazines in the rifles. There was one Ruger scoped bolt action rifle chambered in .308.

One Smith & Wesson Model 342 AirLite Ti .38 revolver was found with four live rounds and one fired cartridge case in the cylinder. The shooter had purchased 29 firearms from 1982 to September 2016.  Of the firearms found in the Mandalay Bay suite, only the revolver had been purchased before September 2016.

At least ten suitcases were found in the suite during the investigation.

Approximately 1,050 .223/5.56 empty cartridge cases were found in the suite. Only 8 .308/7.62 cartridge cases were listed as being found.

At least 14 loaded magazines were found in the suite, with about 5,280 rounds of live ammunition. The loaded magazines included steel 100-round AR-15 magazines, polymer 40-round AR-15 magazines, and polymer 25-round AR-10 magazines. Empty rifle magazines were also found. The magazines are not numbered by type in the report.

The report mentions that there were 1,965 leads investigated, including 21,560 hours of video and 251,099 images obtained. The analysis found 529 sightings of the shooter.

While it has been reported that the suite door had a hundred bullet holes, in fact, only about 35 shots were fired through the door, resulting in about 200 bullet strikes as the projectiles went through the door and struck additional walls and doors inside Mandalay Bay. Security officer Campos was struck in the left calf by a bullet fragment, which he initially thought was from a BB or pellet gun.

On page 47 of the report, it is reported that several hundred images of child pornography were found on a Dell laptop in the Mandalay Bay suite. The investigation into those images is ongoing. The same laptop held evidence of numerous searches about outdoor venues and other information that would be relevant to planning the mass murder that took place.

The shooter fired about eight rounds of .308 at the fuel tanks at the airport. Google Earth shows the range to the tanks to be about 675 yards. The bullet strikes did not ignite any fuel. The pictures in the report look as though the bullets did not penetrate the tank.

This review covers only a small portion of the information in the preliminary report. Those who are interested can read the entire report below.

LVMPD Preliminary Investigative Report October 1st, 2017 Mass Shooting


About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30-year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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Lou

Hay Dean, A relevant question occurs to me. The perp was a millionaire? He had nothing which would cause him to fail even a stringent background check. He had resided in various States, at least some allowing the private citizen to own fully automatic weapons. Question,…. Why did he need bump stocks? He could have purchased a fully functional machinegun, something like a belt fed MG42. Such weapons usually have a quick removable barrel and could have also been smuggled into the hotel in a large suitcase, or small trunk, providing more accurate controlled fire, and using 200 round ammo… Read more »

Quatermain

Of equal importance is the question of ballistic links of recovered projectiles from the victims to ANY of these weapons. All we have is photo’s of bump stock equipped rifles to “prove” there was a link. That would not hold in a real court of law.

Scotty Gunn

Bet they took hundreds if not thousands of pictures of those rooms. Yet we only see one time and again.

Jeffersonian

All those weapons and magazines just scattered around in no particular order or direction? Is that supposed to be a photo of an undisturbed crime scene, or someone’s mental image of how it should be laid out, someone who’s never done any serious shooting in their life? One doesn’t have to *be* a murderous sociopath to imagine how such a thing can be more efficiently done. In a Civilian Marksmanship Program rifle match, or a 3-Gun action match, you have your reloads and transition weapons laid out *just so*, so you don’t have to hike across an entire hotel suite… Read more »

DrSique

Looks more staged than tactical, for sure. My main question is still why anyone would bring that number of semi-auto rifles at all??? In the area of a hotel suite, I can’t possibly imagine a scenario where he would get to use even half of them. Certainly not in the haphazard way they are strewn throughout the room.

JS

Honestly that hoard of firearms shows how mentally deranged he was. A bolt action rifle, pointless…unless he thought he was going to play sniper, AR-10’s without ammo, plain weird…

Tionico

the article states the bolt gun was used to fire at fuel tanks some 700 yards distant. Rather a tough shot with an AR platform using 5.56 rounds. WHY he tried to penetrate them one can only guess, unless it was to be a diversion ,drawing responders to that huge fire to provide “cover” for his planned massacre. Maes a lot of sense from that perspective.

moe mensale

So is the guy who owns a dozen exotic sports cars also mentally deranged?

As for the guns, maybe he used the bolt gun to shoot at the fuel tanks. Who knows? The story isn’t clear on that. He also had several loaded AR-10 magazines but apparently only fired 8 .308 rounds.. Did you even bother to read the story? Did you actually comprehend any of it?

Your entire comment is useless drivel.

Infidel762X51

The shooter had purchased 29 firearms from 1982 to September 2016.” Tell me again how there is no firearms registration in this country.

Herb T

There is no firearms registration in this country. (wink, wink.) Feel better? It used to be illegal for the government to register firearms. Remember the liars, cheats and socialists commonly known as democrats? They just illegally register your firearms for your own good. Besides, there are more of them than you or your family or your neighborhood and you are outgunned. So, you loose. And they don’t give a poop about the constitution unless it is their rights that are jeopardized.

Ed

So he bought 29 firearms in 34 years that is less then one a year average. You ask why no registration, because the government would use that list if the Democrats and anti rights group ( Communist) have there way, to confiscate the guns that Law-abiding citizens own. Armed citizens are free citizens , unarmed citizens are subjects (Slaves)!!!

Mark

“The shooter had purchased 29 firearms from 1982 to September 2016. Of the firearms found in the Mandalay Bay suite, only the revolver had been purchased before September 2016.” Am I misreading that? The way those lines are written, he bought the revolver in 1982. All the other guns were purchased between September 2016 and September 2017. Is that really how it went? Just curious. Even I would at least wonder why someone was buying almost 3 per month, for a year straight. Not that I feel that in itself would warrant legal intervention but maybe he could have been… Read more »

Tionico

You noticed that, too, eh? Note it does NOT say traces on the weapons found at the scene showed those guns purchased within the time frame.

And the data contained in the 4473 form when NICS is pulled “disappear” within a week, max?

Yup. And pet hen can fly to the moon and back in two weeks.

John Dow

Make, model and serial number trace to manufacturer/importer. That leads to distributor, which leads to retailer, who digs out the old forms. There wouldn’t be any NICS data on purchases before 1998.