In a hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, one man smashed out the windows and opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 people attending a music festival.
Shots were first reported to police at 10:08 pm PT and police say Stephen Paddock fired for 9-11 minutes before stopping.
Police then began the search for the room gunman Paddock was shooting from (room 32-135) — it was a corner suite with what Las Vegas police described as an uninterrupted view of the Las Vegas Strip.
Coverage of the Las Vegas shooting on Globalnews.ca:
Authorities say the Las Vegas shooter had posted cameras two cameras in the hallway to keep an eye on any police or security.
He also placed a camera in the peephole of his room, Clark County Undersheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters Tuesday evening.
Paddock fired on oncoming officers and hotel security, leaving one guard injured. Officers then waited for a SWAT team to arrive.
SWAT teams then blew the door open and found Paddock dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Photos from the scene show the door to the luxury suite blown open, with guns immediately visible.
Police found 23 guns in the room; Lombardo said Monday the gunman had brought around 10 suitcases into the hotel over the three days prior to the shooting.
Officers also found 19 firearms at a home in Mesquite, Nev. and another seven at a home in Reno, Nev.
While the sheriff couldn’t say whether the guns had been modified, he said the weapons were being sent to the FBI crime lab for analysis.
The gunman’s motive remains unclear, but the fact that he had these weapons available showed that the shooting was premeditated, Lombardo said.
The gunman also used a device called a “bump stock” which makes non-automatic weapons fire automatically. There were a dozen such modifiers found on the weapons in his room.
The first photos of the hotel room were leaked to the media on Tuesday. McMahill confirmed the photos were legitimate on Tuesday evening while also noting that an investigation had been launched into how they became available.
Semi-automatic weapons were found on the floor, along with a plethora of rounds of spent ammo.
Two of the windows were smashed open, likely by a hammer before the shooting began, police said.
— With files from Global News’ Kevin Nielsen and the Associated Press