The Latest: Vegas dims lights to mark week since shooting
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latest on the mass shooting in Las Vegas (all times local):
10:05 p.m.
At 10:05 p.m., the Las Vegas Strip’s bright lights dimmed for about 10 minutes to mark the passing of exactly a week since a gunman opened fire, killing 58 people and wounding almost 500 at a country music festival.
Most casinos along Las Vegas Boulevard darkened their marquees briefly Sunday.
A week earlier, gunfire began raining from a 32nd-floor room at the gold-glass Mandalay Bay hotel tower on the city’s famous resort corridor.
Officials say more than 50 properties around town also took part in the memorial.
The Strip was also darkened after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
It was last dimmed to mark the death in February 2015 of legendary former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.
Others whose deaths were marked the same way include Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., George Burns and Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
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4:20 p.m.
The Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people from his hotel room barricaded shut a stairwell door on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay to keep officers at bay during his rampage.
The police officers who responded to Stephen Paddock’s room tell the CBS program “60 Minutes” that they used a pry bar to open the door after he screwed a piece of metal on it.
In the “60 Minutes” segment, the officers also described in harrowing detail how they rushed to his room. One of them said he was bleeding in the neck from a bullet wound. Another said he hurried from police headquarters to the Mandalay Bay while wearing a pair of cowboy boots that he took off in the casino so he could run faster.
Inside Paddock’s room, the officers described seeing rifles, electronics, drills and stacks of ammunition magazines.
They went into the room after Paddock shot and killed himself. At that point, they were unsure if there were other shooters or whether the floor was booby-trapped
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3:35 p.m.
Officials say lights will dim for about 10 minutes at more than 50 casino and shopping properties to mark the time exactly a week earlier when a gunman shot into a crowd at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.
A Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority list of places promising to take part in the somber commemoration also includes a Walgreens pharmacy and a golf driving range and lounge that stays open until 2 a.m.
Most casinos along the Strip in Las Vegas, along with properties in Henderson and North Las Vegas, are scheduled to darken their marquees.
The lights of the Las Vegas Strip were last dimmed to mark the death in February 2015 of legendary former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian.
Others who have been similarly honored include Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., George Burns and Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
The Strip was also darkened after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
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2:35 p.m.
Federal investigators returned to Stephen Paddock’s southern Nevada house for what the local police chief calls an effort to re-document and recheck the home of the man who opened fire on a concert crowd in Las Vegas.
Police Chief Troy Tanner told The Associated Press on Sunday he accompanied FBI agents serving a federal search warrant at the three-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada.
Tanner says it doesn’t appear investigators are after anything specific, but they are just taking photographs and examining items in the home.
The home was initially searched Monday by Las Vegas police looking for clues to the motive for the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Mesquite is a community of about 18,000 residents with casinos and golf courses along the state line with Arizona. It’s about 90 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
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2:07 p.m.
The owner of a casino where Stephen Paddock gambled says the Las Vegas gunman didn’t drink alcohol or show any signs of trouble when he was a customer there.
Steve Wynn said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” that Paddock had “the most vanilla profile one could possibly imagine.”
He says Paddock didn’t run up debts or have a gambling problem. Wynn said butlers, waiters and massage employees knew Paddock and his girlfriend.
Wynn also described some of the security measures his casino put in place in recent years that include magnetometers and training of housekeeping staff to report suspicious actions like a do-not-disturb sign remaining on a door for an extended period of time.
Paddock killed 58 people at a country music festival from his 32nd floor suite at the Mandalay Bay, which is owned by MGM Resorts.
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This story has been clarified to add the name of the Fox Network show.
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10:35 a.m.
Officials who are announcing a property return plan for concertgoers who fled gunfire at a Las Vegas music festival a week ago say more items will be made available in coming days for people who were in other areas of the venue.
Deputy Clark County Fire Chief John Steinbeck said Sunday that items are being returned first to people who were in and in front of the VIP tent and bleacher seating east of the stage at the Route 91 Harvest festival.
Officials say updates for people who left belongings in other areas of the festival grounds will be made public through news reports and on Twitter on @ClarkCountyNV, @LVMPD, @FBILasVegas and with the hashtags #1October and #VegasStrong.
FBI spokeswoman Sandra Breault (BRO’) says officials aren’t answering any questions right now about the investigation itself.
She says people unclear about where their possessions may have been left might want to wait until all items have been catalogued and are made available for pickup.
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10:15 a.m.
Officials say they’re beginning to return personal belongings to concertgoers who were in one corner of the festival grounds where a gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel a week ago.
Deputy Clark County Fire Chief John Steinbeck announced Sunday that items are being returned to people at a Family Assistance Center in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
For now, items are being returned to people who were in the area in and around the VIP tent and bleacher seating east of the stage at the Route 91 Harvest festival.
Federal agents have spent almost a week collecting evidence amid thousands of personal items like cellphones, baby strollers, lawn chairs, backpacks, shoes and purses left behind when people scattered late Oct. 1.
The FBI is coordinating the returns with a victim questionnaire on its website, www.fbi.gov/lvmusicfestivalshooting, or by email at LVFestivalAssist@fbi.gov .
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9 a.m.
Officials in Las Vegas are going to announce how concertgoers will be able to retrieve property left behind when they fled from a concert ground that became the target for a gunman who opened fire last week from a high-rise hotel.
Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa says FBI and Las Vegas police officials, and the deputy fire chief who serves as county emergency manager will be at the Sunday morning announcement.
Federal agents have spent almost a week collecting evidence and sifting through thousands of personal items, including baby strollers, lawn chairs, backpacks, shoes and purses, left behind when people scattered late Oct. 1.
Officials say about 22,000 people attended the Route 91 Harvest festival.
Fifty-eight were killed and nearly 500 were injured before the gunman killed himself in the hotel room.
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10:12 p.m.
“Saturday Night Live” has paid tribute to the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting and the late rock superstar Tom Petty by opening its show with country star Jason Aldean singing one of Petty’s songs.
Aldean performed “I Won’t Back Down” during the live opening Saturday night and then introduced the show.
Aldean was performing at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas last Sunday night when a gunman sprayed bullets into the crowd from a high-rise hotel, killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500.
Petty died the next day in Los Angeles after suffering cardiac arrest.
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5 p.m.
A law enforcement official says investigators believe a note found in the Las Vegas shooter’s hotel room contained a series of numbers that helped him calculate more precise shots.
The official says Saturday that the numbers found on a note on a nightstand included the distance between the high-rise hotel room that Stephen Paddock was using as a perch and the concert the victims were attending.
The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the details of the ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Investigators are still trying to determine why Paddock committed the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
He killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others last Sunday before taking his own life.
— By Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo
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1:30 p.m.
Vice President Mike Pence says in the depths of horror, Americans have found hope in those who risked their lives after the Las Vegas shooting.
Pence spoke Saturday afternoon at a prayer service in Las Vegas honoring the 58 victims killed last Sunday in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Pence says those killed were taken before their time. But he says, “Their names and their stories will forever be etched into the hearts of the American people.”
Fifty-eight doves were released outside on the steps of City Hall. They flew in a wide arc before disappearing into the distance as someone shouted, “God bless America!”
Investigators are still trying to figure out what led gunman Stephen Paddock to carry out the attack.
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12:30 p.m.
The family of a California man killed in the Las Vegas shooting is asking a judge to appoint a special administrator to take control of the gunman’s assets.
Attorneys for the family of 56-year-old John Phippen filed the petition in Clark County, Nevada, on Friday.
The court filing asks a judge to appoint the county’s public administrator to take control of gunman Stephen Paddock’s estate. The petition says that’s a necessary step to allow lawsuits to be brought against Paddock’s estate.
Phippen was one of 58 victims killed when Paddock opened fire from his high-rise hotel suite last Sunday. Hundreds of others were injured before Paddock took his own life.
Friends have said the father of six from Santa Clarita, California, was always willing to lend an ear — or a cold beer — to a friend in need.
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10:30 a.m.
Federal agents are starting to haul away thousands of personal items left behind when a gunman opened fire on a Las Vegas concert, killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500 others.
FBI agents were seen Saturday morning hauling baby strollers, lawn chairs, backpacks and purses onto dollies and into the back of a white truck.
Law enforcement officers had fanned out across the crime scene throughout the week, stacking up belongings of concert-goers into more than a dozen large piles.
Authorities have said they plan to return the belongings to people in the next week.
An estimated 22,000 people attended the Route 91 Harvest festival on Sunday when gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire from his high-rise hotel suite.
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12 a.m.
Tourists coming to Las Vegas may soon encounter something darker than the dazzling lights that typically welcome them to the city.
Billboards will serve as a stark reminder that investigators remain stumped about what drove a gunman to mow down concertgoers from a perch in a high-rise casino hotel last Sunday.
Police who have yet to find Stephen Paddock’s motive for the massacre said Friday that they will enlist the public’s help.
The FBI’s Aaron Rouse says billboards will ask people with credible information to call the agency. The number will be 800-CALL-FBI.
Paddock left behind little clues about what led him to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. He killed 58 and wounded nearly 500 before killing himself.
