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tv   ABC7 News 500AM  ABC  October 2, 2017 5:00am-6:00am PDT

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1-866-535-5654. back to abc news coverage of the las vegas shooting. deadly rampage in las vegas. mass shooting at a country music festival. a lone shooter opening fire right above jason aldean's concert. out the window of a mandalay bay hotel room firing for four and a half minutes. >> it just kept going and going. >> more than 50 people dead, over 200 injured. mass panic erupting on the strip as thousands of concert goers run for their lives. we hear from the eyewitness who is were right there. >> i heard this pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, going nonstop. >> the deadliest mass shooting in american history. our team bringing you the latest
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live from las vegas this morning. live in times square, this is "good morning america." and we do say good morning, america, such a tragic way to begin the week. the latest on the deadliest mass shooting in american history unfolded last night at a country music festival just after 10:00 p.m. local time there. >> jason aldean was on the stage. we have video of those moments when the first shots rang out. ♪ [ gunfire ]rapid gunfire ] >> it went on for 4 1/2 minutes. more than 200 rounds fired, bursts of fire. this is what the scene looked like from the concert goers perspective.
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>> all this unfolding. it was the last day of the three-day country music festival. the shooter taking aim from the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay. >> here what we know. more than 50 people killed, more than 200 injured. the shooter is identified. he's 64-year-old stephen paddock. they also located a woman who was his roommate, his companion. we're live across the country. we want to start with matt gutman on the scene. good morning matt. >> george, good morning. when you hear the stripgs of the guitar playing and you see that video and hear the gunfire you understand why some of the concert goers called it the kill box. it was shooting fish in a barrel for that shooter.
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mass chaos erupting bursting on to the nearby runway. terror and carnage erupting on the las vegas strip in what has become america's deadliest mass shooting. just after 10:00 p.m. local time the hail of gunfire reigning down from the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay hotel. the shooter identified at 64-year-old stephen paddock of mess keet nevada. his target thousands of civilians attending the jason aldean hotel. people bursting out on the runway of the las vegas airport. they carried the wounded victims by pick-up truck even using a barricade as a makeshift stretcher. more than 50 dead and 200 wounded. authorities saying paddock acted alone calling it a loan wolf
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attack by 1:30 a.m. confirming he was dead in the hotel room. >> all units on the 32 floor the swat has explosive breach. >> we located numerous firearms in the room. >> reporter: authorities also reporting they located the female person of interest marilou danley, a companion of the shooter. >> that terror cascading up the las vegas strip. you can't get in right now. thousands of hotel rooms were shut down. people were told to shelter in place. the lock down ended a short time ago. tens of thousands of visitors here to las vegas sheltering in their rooms in absolute terror unaware of what's going on. there were reports of false
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gunfire, bomb scarings. police are now focusing on the invest gag. that's going to be kpaus if. it's going to take days. >> the more than 200 injured many critical taken to local hospitals. we find linsey davis there. >> there's an eery quiet outside the hospital. you've don't hear a lot of sirens or people. it's really quiet in sharp contrast to the life saving efforts underway behind me. more than 200 injured. 104 patients are here. this particular hospital only has 18 beds in the icu. eight people were taken to the emergency room. 12 people remain in critical condition. it is a big question that looms large here especially that we heard in the medical community is how well prepared is las
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vegas, the area hospitals, for something like this with all at once more than 200 injured being taken to the hospital. of course we can expect they're going to be asking for blood donations as well because of so many people injured. >> something to keep in mind. thank you. >> how can you be prepared for something of that scale. brian ross is back with us. surveillance cameras will tell us how. the big question is why. >> exactly. the best key is the come pain your of stephen paddock marilou danley. she lived with him in mess keet nevada about an hour outside las vegas. police searched for her. she was not at home when they arrived. they now found her. she has posted pictures on her facebook site of her gambling at the mand lay hotel in 2014.
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no one may know better than she does. >> not a big on-line profile. >> not at all on his part. he worked as an accountant over the years. he had a hunting license. lived in nevada, alaska and sometimes new york. he sued the mandalay bay in 2012. he had a private pilot's lie slens. >> no criminal record? >> no criminal record. no bar for him to buy weapons. he appeared to use a fully automatic weapon which is very difficult to obtain. >> so far no indication of a me problems. >> police waited to share his name because they wanted to see if he had other people involved. >> exactly. they put the word out about her to find her. they held back his name in case anyone else was connected with him. >> coming up we're live all across the country with the
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deadliest mass shooting erupting during the jason aldean performance. more eye witnesses opening up about the terrifying moments when we come back. liberty did what? yeah, liberty mutual 24-hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. don't worry - i know what a lug wrench is, dad. is this a lug wrench? maybe? you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. from only real ingredients. we blocked some of those people on social media. then, we did it. go us. thisto a hilarioushing baudiobook on audible.g and this woman is laughing because she's pretending
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we're back here on "gma" with breaking new details with the woman who was believed to be a person of interest in that deadly shooting. brian, you have more. >> they made contact with marilou danley. they determined she was not involved in the shooting in any way. she remains important as a key to what was going on in the mind of the killer. she was his companion for several year. >> brian ross, thanks. we've heard so many emotional
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accounts from eye witnesses on the scene. we want to take a look at that. >> i was inside. we refused to believe it was a shooting until it just kept going and going. then jason aldean left the stage and everybody started fleeing. we started fleeing. we had to hop a gate to get out. it was crazy. i've never seen anything like it in my life. >> there was short increments where there was breaks in between the shots. it literally felt like it continued for 20 minutes straight. every time there was a break we ran and we ran. i still wasn't sure if it was actually bullets until when one of the times we paused our friend, the guy next to us, got shot. >> people started dropping around us. everybody tried to stay down. every time a group would get up to run away they would just
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start shooting again. they were getting closer they were going there's someone shooting right there. a lot of people were piling on top of each other whether they were bleeding or not. people were holding each others wounds down and shouting stay day. >> we were thinking we were going to die. a security guard got shot right next to us. we thought we were going to die. i called my mom to be honest. i was just calling my mom to tell her i loved her and good-bye. >> everyone bottle necked and he opened fire. you could hear bullets coming through the tent. all the walls in the location were 10, 15 feet high. you couldn't climb them. everyone was bottle necked. there was no escape. it was a kill bogx. people were climbing over
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people. i don't know how to compare it. there was nothing i had ever seen on tv or in a movie that compared to what we saw. >> there was this one police officer he was so brave. he was jumping over the fence to take on this guy. i was like oh, my god. it's so brave. everyone i was with was wor abo didn't matter where you were, it didn't -- you didn't feel safe anywhere. >> and for hours after they did not feel safe. we'll bring in our security consultant, former fbi agent steve gomez. it is very apparent, steve, a lot of planning went into this. >> a lot of planning. he clearly reconned the las vegas area, knew that there was a concert that would be held for three days: there was a festival, arranged to have a room very high up. the civilians there were sitting ducks. it's so unfortunate.
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the biggest thing that stands out to me is the fact this kind of attack has been expected almost in las vegas for years. after 9/11 this is what we thought was going to happen. and it's interesting this is now involved somebody who is not even really related to isis, al qaeda, anything like that from the foreign terrorist organization. >> it does appear that way and you say it's something the soft target they were concerned with especially there in vegas. the concern seemed to be before that the casinos themselves, not an event like this, would be the target. >> exactly. knowing that the casinos and the hotels are heavily populated, there's always crowds around those areas, so this was a location that probably wasn't expected to be attacked from above. clearly there was security around the concert as people were going in but here, again, is another situation where somebody figured out how to penetrate that security from high up in a hotel shooting down at everybody. >> well, because just walk into the hotel with your bags.
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i mean, how can something like this be prevented? >> well, it's very difficult because you can carry a large duffel bag in and most people are just going to think that you have your clothes and whatever going in there and in this situation he had a lot of guns. how are you going to stop this? it really requires the help of the public. they have to be alert to anybody that's got any kind of either mental health issue or they are thinking about committing some sort of act, even if they're just talking about it. you have to raise that up to law enforcement so they can look into it and take action. >> good point there, steve. thank you. >> we'll go back to the white house right now. cec cecilia vega. >> reporter: the president is here in the white house. we are told by senior white house officials that he has been briefed. he is monitoring the situation closely. we also know that the white house says that the white house is offering the full support to all of those local and state officials out there. also, of course, offering their
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prayers. the president, as you mentioned, has tweeted this morning shortly after 7:00 a.m. eastern time here. he said that my warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible las vegas shooting. god bless you. we're also hearing from a coalition of nevada congressional representatives. they say that they are working with local officials. of course they're offering their thanks to all of those first responders who are still so actively working on that scene out there. now, george, we do expect to hear from president trump in just a few hours that as a previously scheduled event to take place here at the white house around 11:00 a.m. eastern. i would not be surprised if he at the top of those remarks, of course, address this is ongoing situation in las vegas. i have also asked white house officials here what is the status of the president's trip to puerto rico tomorrow. as you know he's supposed to be going there for his first trip to the island in the wake of the hurricane. i have not received a response whether that is in question at this point, george. >> you have to imagine they're
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rethinking everything right now. thanks very much. >> we talked about how the shots rang out when jason aldean was on stage, but there were other performers like jake owen still there when shots rang out and george had a chance to speak with him earlier. >> jake, what can you tell us? >> it was wild. i was on the stage, actually, watching jason play. i had just come off stage previously, and, you know could the bullets starting to hit the roof of the stage and people started fleeing everywhere. you could hear people screaming. at that point the only way to go is wherever -- it just sounded like gunshots were coming from all around us. this was before anyone knew it was coming from above. it was chaotic. i keep saying it was like a bad movie that you've seen before but never thought it would be real life. >> so you were actually right on the stage? >> i was on the stage watching
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the show. jason turned around and started running back to get out of the way once he realized gunshots were being fired and the crowd started running. i mean, it was -- it was a bad scene. there were people literally being shot. you could see blood everywhere. it was something i don't ever -- wouldn't ever want to see again or anyone else to see. >> and it seemed like jason played for a couple minutes and then he dropped the guitar and ran off stage. >> yeah, well, i think what a lot of people don't understand sometimes when we're up there playing we have what we call in ear monitors in our ear so we can hear each other. i don't think at first he could even hear the shots that were going off until someone maybe in his crew said, hey, you need to get off stage and run back there. i could telekind of stopped and started running. at that point we were all not knowing what to do. >> well, we're glad you're okay right now, jake.
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thank you. no one knew what to do in those terrifying first few minutes. a lot of trauma across las vegas. danita cohen the spokesperson for the university medical center. danita, thank you for taking time with us right now. describe the situation at your hospital right now. >> hi, good morning, george. so far overnight we received 104 patients, about 30 of those patients came in to our level one trauma center. we are the only level one trauma center in the state. many more patients came through our emergency dertpa did receiv all the patients we received, unfortunately, four passed away. eight patients went straight to the operating rooms. and the good news is many patients have already been discharged at this early hour. >> already discharged, that is good news. and you're one of the major trauma centers in the las vegas area. how many other hospitals do you know are receiving patients right now? >> this is an interesting health care market in las vegas.
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we have between 10 and 12 hospitals, most do have emergency departments. we're the only level one trauma center. there are some other trauma centers, level two and a level three. i am of the understanding that all hospitals received patients, although i can't confirm what the other hospitals have received. >> do you have all the help you need right now? >> we do. thankfully we are ready, willing, and very trained for mass casualty incidents and so we have a full trauma team in house 24/7 around the clock. typically not with this many patients but we have a very highly skilled and specialized team standing by and we also operate under what we call accordion staffing. as we needed more trauma surgeons, more trauma nurses, more critical care clinicians we called them in and they came in. our coo was actually wheeling patients around the hospital and grabbing blankets and doing whatever we needed to take care
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of not only our patients but family and friends of our patients here waiting, worrying, and wondering how they were doing. >> they have to be in so much shock. how many in critical condition? >> we have about 12, george, in critical condition. a few still in the operating room. so plenty more health care still to do but after a very busy night, very proud of our trauma team this morning. >> well, you ought to be and you're doing important work there. we'll be right back. and we'll bring back pierre thomas. what do you know, pierre? >> well, again, they're locked in on stephen paddock trying to get additional information about his background. so far no ties to international terrorism, law enforcement officials telling us this is
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looking like crime, a horrific mass shooting of the nature we saw at sandy hook and the virginia tech massacre. so law enforcement, again, trying to figure out how did he get these weapons, what was the motive, were they converted into machine guns, those are the critical questions being pursued right now as we speak, robin. >> continuing how this investigation will play out from this point on. >> one of the first things they did, robin, was to look at all known databases, looking at crime information, looking at terrorism information. and in terms of the terrorism information nothing came up that jumped out at them. so far no indications of any kind of significant criminal background for this man. so that's all been done but still more work to be done in terms of looking at surveillance photographs, looking at video that might have been around the hotel. they're going to search his home, search for any smart phones, search for any computers, anything that will glean information about what the motive might have been.
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>> and they were already able to dismiss that the companion has any connection? >> right. they talked to her very quickly trying to assess did she know this was going to happen. right now the early indication is she had no idea this was about to go down so they will begin to ask her additional questions about did he say anything that suggested that he was planning to do something? was he angry about anything? any kind of detail that she could provide. also, any known associate, family member, will be contacted, robin. >> all right, pierre. >> we want to bring in our former fbi expert. you've profiled in your career. so far no ties to international terrorism. they don't think the companion was involved. there was no criminal record. so it leaves a lot of mystery. >> yes, but probably not going to be a big mystery, george. as you and i talked a few moments ago, revenge and
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empowerment. and he's mad about something and feels like he was powerless to fix it, whatever it might be. and that's the juncture mass shooters get to when it's all about revenge because they believe people have done something to them. in this case it's not going to be the people in the crowd. it's what they represent to the shooter. and so the people around him will certainly be able to maybe give them insight into what's going on with her -- with him, i'm sorry. >> all right, brad, thank you. so much more we'll have. we'll take a short break for your local news and weather as we remain on the air all morning with live coverage of the deadliest shooting in american history.
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thank you for joining us. breaking news coverage will continue? just a moment. we want to let you know if you are worried with a family member or a friend las vegas police set up this phone number to help people find out if their loved ones are safe. here is the number now, 1-866-535-5654. we also tweeted out this number and posted it on facebook. please share it. we are monitoring the breaking details coming in to our newsroom. we do want to get you a quick check of your bay area weather with mike nicco. good morning, mike. we're living through our first autumn wind event. you can see some of the gusts from 30 to 50 miles an hour in our hills and that's the reason the fire danger is so high. red flag warning continues in the north bay until 5:00 tomorrow evening. here is what to expect. the threat is above 1,000 feet.
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gusts 35 to 50, 55 miles an hour. look at how low the humidity is, bone-dry, and everything is dead now so the fire will start easily and spread rapidly. we need to be careful the next 24 to 36 hours. the wind are keeping temperatures up, up to 16 degrees warmer than yesterday. here is what to dress in your neighborhood. 51 in fremont and danville, 54. 56 in san jose. everybody else in the low to mid-60s. here's a look at what's going on from the east bay hills. you can see the camera bouncing around there. high fire danger through tomorrow. accuweather highlight for warming temperatures wednesday as the breezes relax and the warmth reaches our beaches this weekend. today not so much. 70 in san francisco. 70, 75 through most of the bay shore and upper 70s in our inland neighborhoods. tonight cooler than this morning, not quite as breezy as this morning, temperatures in the 50s. and here is my accuweather
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seven-day forecast. coolest tomorrow. near 80 at the coast to 90 inland by friday. hey, alexis. and there has not been anything major on the roads so far today. light volumes. we remain incident free. a couple of our only slow spots down to nine miles an hour, 15 miles an hour approaching altamont pass. just under an hour tracy into dublin and then a quick check of the toll plaza sure looks like we have the metering lights flipped on. >> alexis, thank you. i want to recap what we know. the suspect identified as 64-year-old stephen paddock killed in his hotel room. he shot from the 32nd floor at the mandalay bay. brian ross is reporting, quote, he had no criminal record. he had a pilot's license and alaska hunting license and was an accountant. at least 50 people are dead, at least 200 hurt. those numbers are expected to rise. our coverage continues now on twitter, also abc 7news.com and our free abc 7 news app. breaking news coverage continues
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now. and welcome back to "gma" live all across the country. the latest on the deadliest mass shooting in american history. a gunman opened fire last night during jason aldean's performance around 10:08 las vegas time. more than 50 people killed, more than 200 injured. >> and so many eyewitness accounts we are hearing from. we'll bring lindsay and her fiance. lindsay put people in her truck to take them to the hospital. lindsay, just tell us what happened, what you saw. >> we were getting in my truck to leave and we just saw a bunch of people that needed help so we just started piling them in the
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truck. they said they needed the truck, so we were like, yeah, of course. they filled up my back seat, the tailgate of my truck. >> and you were at the concert when all this happened? >> yes, i was. yeah. >> and then you went from there to get shelter at the airport? >> right. >> and tell us a little bit more about how all that happened and your decision in doing that. >> well, when we heard the shots, we didn't exactly realize what it was. but finally when everyone started ducking down, we did, too. there wasn't really anywhere for us to go but on the floor. because there were so many people. so we were all just on top of each other on the floor. for what seemed like forever until people started running, we were able to get up and start running. and we just kept running and we
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ended up -- we passed my truck and ended up in an airport hangar until i didn't hear gunshots anymore. and that's when we decided to go back to the truck. >> mark, what was it like for you? >> i was just more worried about her. i let her lead the way and i followed her and i just had to make sure she was safe. >> and people were getting -- and bless you all for thinking of others and it's just -- it warms our heart to know the good in people especially the situation. what was the condition of some of the people you were putting in your truck, lindsay? >> it was bad. one girl was shot in her leg. she was in my back seat. she was probably the least of -- one guy was shot in his back. he actually did die. one guy -- there were a few guys shot in the chest.
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yeah, he carried someone dead into the hospital. >> oh, my gosh. how are you both at this very moment, how are you handling all of this? >> i mean, as well as we can. i don't really know how to answer that. we're just trying to get through the night, you know what i mean. >> you both. and could not imagine, and i just hope that you get the care that you need having witnessed something like this and just so grateful for what you did to help others, both of you. please take care of yourselves. thank you. thank you both. thank you. >> we heard so many people felt they had nowhere to go. matt gutman on the scene, you described earlier today as a kill box. this was 10,000 people basically
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held captive. >>. >> reporter: that's right, george, you rarely hear about shooters whether they are trained by terrorists or trained, to use it on full auto. that's apparently what this man was able to do. may have had his weapon on lockdown spraying into the crowd. these rounds are meant to ricochet within the body causing maximum harm. those are the injuries we've been hearing about, bullets coming in one side, going out another side and what they do -- and i don't want to get too graphic -- but the idea they're designed to create as much internal damage as possible. we've even been seeing the walking wounded come back in here. there's a man about three minutes ago who walked past here who had been shot through the knee and he said, i'm out of the hospital. i'm sort of able to walk and you should have seen what it was like at the hospital, that much worse there. the sheer terror and the fright
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these people went through in that kill box, he was literally shooting fish in a barrel, something i don't know if we've seen in this country before, that many bullets fired on that many people causing this many injuries is something unique in this country's history, journal. >> we have never seen this many killed and for so many hours after those several minutes the entire city in a state of terror believing there were multiple attacks. >> reporter: right. there was this cascade of terror alerts essentially and it went up the strip and it started at the mandalay where the shooter actually fired from and went down to these landmark hotels in las vegas. the ex caliber, mgm grand, new york new york, caeser's palace was shut down. they ordered their guests to seek shelter in place, and that's tens of thousands of visitors in rooms across this very, very populated and
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generally bumping strip. lindsay mentioned this earlier, the sheer quiet of seeing the las vegas strip completely shut down is something nobody has seen. also in the sky there are always airplanes flying in 10:00, 11:00 p.m., people landing on late night flights. the air was still. that is a very unusual sight. the only sound that you hear in the city, you heard in the city in the immediate aftermath were sirens and people streaming out of the site. a lot of them holding their heads. many of them crying by the side of the road and, again, george, because there was a lockdown, many people got shut out of their hotel rooms. it is chilly here at night. people were huddling for hours just wait to go get back to their rooms. some still covered in the blood they were in from that concert and from that shooting, george. >> what a horrifying scene. let's go to david curly, people were fleeing the shooting, escaping to the nearby airport, breaching the fence.
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who could blame them? they were running for their lives, david. >> reporter: talk about the chaos and the instinct to flee. if you get a sense of what actually happened, mandalay bay, the hotel, the highrise right behind it to the east is a large parking lot. it was fenced in. people had to get over that fence. further east you are at the fence line to mccarran airport and that was breached by a lot of people trying to get away from the venue. they ended up on the airfield at mccarran airport. the airport immediately ordered a ground stop partially because the shooting was happening right next to them at the mandalay bay and security had been breached and they had people on the airfield walking around that lasted for about an hour and a half, nearly two dozen flights were actually diverted to other airports. that's why you had the quiet that matt gutman reported. there were no planes coming in late at night.
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then the airport was resecured and also started operations once again but, robin, just like the witness you spoke to a few minutes ago, she took shelter in an airport hangar. they were going anywhere they could go and the airport is right next to this area. >> david, thank you very much. some new information coming in? >> i want to take it to former fbi special agent brad garrett. we played that video earlier of the breach that have room on the 32nd floor where the shooter had been shooting. now police are saying they found the suspect dead when they got inside. >> it doesn't surprise me, george. this is a guy that appears to have been fairly low key committing this act. we don't know advanced planning. we don't know anybody he's talked to. he probably acquired the weapons himself. maybe modified the triggering mechanism to make them automatic. we don't know. the point being he's a lone guy doing this. once he finished the shooting he knew he was done, that it was
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over, and he had inflicted his revenge on all of the people below for whatever reason. and now he's going to take himself out. this is really not uncommon, george, for mass shooters to actually kill themselves before the police end up doing it. >> he knew the end before he started. >> of course. they're all driven by the act itself. at the end, that's it. i've now ruined my life and many other people. i'm just going to take myself out. i'm not going to let the police shoot me and they shoot themselves. >> brad garrett, thanks very much. >> we are live across the country all morning long. we'll have the latest on the deadliest mass shooting in american history when we come back.
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back here on "gma" with the latest on the dead last mass shooting, the tragedy unfolding at a country music festival in las vegas. 22,000 people were there, more than 400 transported to nearby hospitals. dr. john bookvar the vice chair of neurosurgery here in new york and our medical contributor dr. ashton will join us as well. when we keep hearing these hospitals in las vegas were prepared for this, how are you prepared for something like this? >> well, you have to practice and we practice all the time for
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these casualty like events and it sounds like university medical center had practiced and was prepared. you have to develop a command center and a commanding officer very quickly. who can instruct and triage exactly the services that are needed. >> it sound like battlefield. >> it is battlefield. you'll have a burn room, a level one room, you may have a cast room, you have to have a room for families. it's a really difficult situation if you're not prepared for, you're not going to do well. >> and, jen ashton, you come to us from puerto rico, talk about the triage also happening on the scene. >> reporter: well, george, we're going to -- i expect that we will hear in the next hours and days scenes of absolute lifesaving heroics on the part of innocent bystandersbystander people, people on the scene in terms of mass tragedy like this,
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multiple victims can save lives by applying direct pressure because in the first seconds and minutes what kills people is massive and catastrophic hemorrhage on the scene before they can get to hospitals. so, yes, we absolutely expect total chaos on the scene and command centers from a position of trauma and triage to occur not just on the scene but sometimes outside the hospital in a tent parking lot scenario and inside the hospital. and very much like a ripple effect we will expect that level one trauma center, umc is the only level one trauma center in the state of nevada, will you talking to outlying hospitals. one level one trauma center cannot accommodate 400 patients within one to two hours. so there will be a ripple effect of communication as we heard in terms of care and, yes, possibly some patients will need to be
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medevaced or flown even as far as los angeles. blood banks will be completely taxed. and hospitals go on emergency diverse. they will not accept any more patients in this immediate period of time because all of their focus will be on this trauma. >> we heard, dr. bookvar, interest one of our reporters who said the walking wounded, that they had an injury to the knee and they had been discharged because of what they were seeing there. just talk about the others in critical condition. this kind of ammunition being used causes such havoc on the body. >> well, i think the important thing is triage and life threatening injuries whether they're crush injuries from a sto stampede, head injuries, trauma have to be triaged and the surgeons, the critical care specialists have to be there on site. one of the mistakes made is when we get called for a trauma
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everyone descends on emergency room to try to help. in actuality, that's why a command center away from an emergency room is very important. we're not supposed to go to our emergency room, go to a designated site where we're instructed where our skills are needed and that is what prevents chaos in the emergency room, the first responders triage, they do their critical care. and if we're needed in the operating room we're diverted to the operating room. >> back to the scene now, doctor. thank you very much. with the las vegas police department, joining me on the phone right now. sheriff, thank you for joining us. we just learned from the police that they found the shooter dead when they got inside. what else was in that room? >> well, we're actually right in the middle of serving that search warrant on that room once we had the opportunity to have it drafted and authored. we're just getting in there. i can tell you i don't really
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know the contents of the room in totality but i know there are a number of rif ls room. extended cartridges. we just have to wait until we have a better assessment of what was in that room. obviously in these types of scenarios looking for booby traps. it did take us a long time to get into the actual room. >> could you tell how the shooter died? >> we believe right now that it was self-inflicted gunshot wound. >> and confident, are you confident at this point that he acted alone? >> i have a pretty high level of confidence that he acted alone. as you well know, though, the next number of days we'll be turning over every stone we possibly can to figure out exactly what motivated him and how we ended up where he took over 50 innocent lives.
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and wounded many, many others. we'll continue that part of the investigation and will continue to share the information as it develops. >> marilou danley was not connected to this. how did you reach that conclusion and where did you find her? >> i'm not aware of that, where that information came from. i can tell you that we believe we know where she's at. we believe she's out of the country and we continue to want to speak to her. >> do you know where she is? >> i don't know if we have the exact location or not and if i did i can't share that right now. >> okay. like you say, the big question now motive. what more have you been able to learn about the shooter? what can you tell us? what do you know? >> well, i can tell you that he is a local resident, that he's a 64-year-old white male. and i can also tell you that
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there is nothing in any of our state, local, or federal background checks in any of the computer systems we use to run that would indicate he has an ax to grind with anybody. no law enforcement contact or any other grievance. we have a long way to go as you well know social media is a big piece and part today. and so we have to get through and figure out as much as we can as quickly as we can. >> so far nothing in his background, no kind of criminal record at all. you talked about finding several weapons inside the room. could you tell from what you know right now whether these weapons could have been legally obtained or were these illegal weapons? >> i don't know. right now that's a huge part of what we'll be investigating. whether they're legal or illegal weapons i really don't know.
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>> sheriff, thank you very much for your time. i know you have a lot more work to do. thank you very much. >> and we will continue to be live across the country all morning long as new developments come in on the deadliest mass shooting in american history.
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that was the scene, 10:08 las vegas time last night. a gunman opened fire from the mandalay bay hotel, 32nd floor, deadliest mass shooting in american history. more than 50 dead. 200 wounded. abc's matt gutman has been on the scene all night long. matt? >> reporter: george, one of the things most striking to me is not the scene of the shooting itself, although that was harrowing, it was the moments after when we saw people being moved on the makeshift barricades turned into stretchers. the heroism and ingenuity of the people here. and just moments ago we saw a
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woman wheeling her baggage away from the strip. finally it had opened up. i said, are you okay? she said, i'm fine. i just watched all of this unfold and i just want to leave here. i don't want to be here anymore. this is a mass trauma inflicted on tens of thousands of people, george. >> matt gutman, thank you very much. >> i imagine people want to get out of there. we'll have all the latest on this when we come back.
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and we are back with our live coverage of the deadly mass shooting in las vegas. straight to the scene where sheriff lombardo is holding a press conference. >> provide the fbi and they will be the housing of all that critical information so if you have anybody that has knowledge through your media sources and they want to provide that information, that's the avenue to go. once they receive an individual on the other side of the line they'll walk them through the process and we'll get them to the online version so they can download that information. additionally the coroner's office, as i repeated before, has set up a number for individuals to call and that number is that is for individuals that do not have the ability to come down to the headquarters to discuss their family and friends in person. now the other critical piece
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associated with this and any mass casualty event is the need for blood. united blood services have services set up currently. they are receiving patients or donors at 6930 west charleston and 601 whitney ranch in henderson. so if you have the ability to donate blood to help the cause, please do so. additionally, the labor union is offering their facility, their medical facility at 7135 west sahara for individuals that want to donate blood. and, as always, umc has a pod set up for individuals to go to umc to donate blood. and that will be the gist of the updates at this time. i'm happy to answer any questions. >> sheriff, can you talk about what the scene was like in that room when your officers walked inside? >> we believe the individual killed himself prior to our
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entry. >> how many weapons was he found with? >> we are still going through the search warrant but in excess of ten rifles. >> what's the status of mary lou danley? >> i'm sorry? >> the woman -- >> we have located her out of the country. she was not with him when he checked in. we have discovered he was utilizing some of her identification, and we have had conversations with her and we believe her at this time not to be involved. but obviously that investigation will continue. as far as his residence in mesquite, we have officers now there serving a search warrant. >> anything yielded at this point? >> no, we just made entry a matter of minutes ago. so that's going to be quite some time. we're going to clear the residence first for any possible explosives.
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>> marilou danley, you said was found out of the country. did you find any weapons on her? >> no, ma'am. i don't know what has taken place as far as the interview with her. okay, i think it's important for to you notice who is standing behind me. we have chief mark graycastle, integral in the saving of lives. they paired up with our officers out at the scene and i think their actions and heroic acts were instrumental in saving several hundred lives and then you have our attorney general who has brought forth his office to help us in any future prosecution associated with the case and the special agent in charge aaron rousch of the fbi. as i mentioned the fbi has been standing next to us from the very first minute and they are providing all the resources available to help us in this
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endeavor and then the clark county commission chairman who has been instrumental in getting first responders as far as refreshments and food and support of the entire county commission. i have been on the phone the carolyn goodman, and she responded to umc to check on the patients and she is in the process of visiting the other hospitals and showing the support of the city. and then obviously we have our congressman who is in town to also show us our suppor any other questions of the members standing before you? >> reporter: i know you've said this was not terror related. some people argue this is domestic terrorism. how do you differenciate? >> we have to establish his motive. there's other mitigating

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