The white domestic terrorist who killed at least 58 people and injured more than 500 others at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas Sunday reportedly rented "multiple condos" overlooking the previous weekend's Life Is Beautiful Festival.
A senior law enforcement source told the Daily Beast Tuesday that terrorist Stephen Paddock had rented the condos at some point last month. The source, who's not directly involved in the ongoing investigation but has been briefed, suggested to the Beast's Michael Daly that Paddock either "lost his nerve" or just changed his plans before eventually checking into the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
This year's Life Is Beautiful lineup included Chance the Rapper, Lorde, blink-182, Pusha T, Haim, Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Gorillaz, Vince Staples, Bill Nye, and many more. Though final 2017 attendance numbers haven't been released, last year's edition drew an estimated 137,000 people.
A separate report from NBC News later Tuesday quoted a spokesperson for the 21-story Ogden building as declining to answer further questions about alleged Paddock rentals, only confirming that the investigation was active and ongoing. Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo, during a presser Tuesday afternoon, could not confirm these recent reports.
Sunday night, Paddock fired down upon an estimated Route 91 Harvest crowd of at least 20,000 from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. A New York Timesreport Tuesday, citing a law enforcement official, revealed that at least one of the rifles later discovered in Paddock's hotel suite had been outfitted with a bump stock. A bump stock makes the weapon capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute by allowing the rifle's body to slide a short distance back and forth without the operator having to move the trigger finger. Despite serving no logical purpose for a civilian, bump stocks are somehow legal.
I had the chance to attend this year's Life Is Beautiful and met with festival organizers who stood united in a single goal: putting together an unforgettable three-day event celebrating life, music, art, and the power of community on a massive scale. The fact that anyone would seek to disrupt that with unspeakable horror, as the white domestic terrorist did just one week later at Route 91 Harvest, is a testament to just how utterly fucked this country's baffling acceptance of routine violence is.
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Blood is on the hands of every NRA-pimping slimefuck in our government, including the one who just last year "joked" he could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters." That same sack of KKK-tinged lard received a $30 million campaign boost from the NRA, a group that—in more than one person's opinion—is a terrorist organization.
