FBI: Las Vegas Shooter Inspired by ‘Certain Degree of Infamy’

The FBI reportedly found no “clear motivating factor” behind the Las Vegas massacre that killed 59 people in 2017, but concluded that shooter Stephen Paddock was inspired by “a certain degree of infamy via a mass casualty attack.” According to CNN, the FBI concluded its investigation after nearly 12 months and found that Paddock was not “directed, inspired, nor enabled by ideologically motivated persons or groups.” The agency reportedly found that he had no identifiable grievance against any Las Vegas hotel or the country music festival he shot at—but he had a desire to die by suicide. The FBI reportedly noted that he had surveillance cameras to alert him of approaching authorities, had a handgun at the ready, and sped up his attack upon realizing a police response to his hotel room at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino was imminent. Agency analysts also found that Paddock experienced a “decline in mental and physical health” and had poor finances in the years leading up to the attack. Paddock injured about 500 other people in the attack on the Route 91 Harvest music festival, which is now considered the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.