Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock wanted to 'attain infamy' by carrying out a mass shooting: FBI
The October 1, 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip by 64-year-old gunman Stephen Paddock left 58 dead and a further 851 injured making it the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the United States. Paddock killed himself before law enforcement reached him at his suite in the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel and, hence, the motive behind the massacre has remained a mystery.
Now, close to a year-and-a-half after the tragic incident, and more than a year after the FBI opened its own investigation into the shooting, the agency has concluded that there was "no single or clear motivating factor" behind Paddock's killing spree and subsequent suicide.
According to NPR, the Las Vegas Review Panel of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit shared key findings from their three-page synopsis of the shooting that explored details of Paddock's developmental, interpersonal, and clinical history as they related to his behavior before the attack.
Just like the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department previously concluded in August, the FBI determined that the 64-year-old acted alone — a prostitute spotted with him in Las Vegas was ruled out as a suspect. He was said to have carefully planned the attack for over a year, carefully researching police tactics and response, site selection, and ballistics, before going on a firearms shopping spree in the lead up to the day, purchasing over 55 firearms in the span of 11 months.