Hunting Down the Gunman: a 72-Minute Timeline

Police were quick to home in on Mandalay Bay
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 3, 2017 10:20 AM CDT
From 911 Call to the End: Vegas Shooting in 72 Minutes
Authorities say Stephen Paddock broke these windows at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, seen Monday.   (AP Photo/John Locher)

A clearer timeline of the Las Vegas shooting is coming into focus, though exactly what Stephen Paddock was up to during the 72 minutes between the first 911 call and the time officers entered his suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino is still taking shape. NBC News reports the first 911 call came at 10:08pm local time, just as a police officer on the scene raised the alarm: "We got shots fired, sounds like an automatic firearm," the officer said over a police radio channel, per the New York Times. Less than a minute later, an officer described shots as "coming from upstairs in the Mandalay Bay," per the Times. Within minutes, an officer who'd reached the 31st floor of the 43-story Mandalay Bay commented that he could hear "automatic fire coming from … one floor above us."

Per a Times analysis of video of 15 seconds of the attack, about 90 shots were fired in just 10 seconds. Police communications suggest the shooting had ended by 10:25pm, when officers arrived outside Suite 135 on the 32nd floor, though a hotel security guard was at one point shot through the suite door. It took almost an hour for SWAT teams to secure the floor before Paddock's room was accessed using an explosive device. Paddock, who'd allegedly smashed the floor-to-ceiling windows in the suite in order to take aim at a crowd of 22,000 gathered for the Route 91 Harvest festival 500 yards away, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at 11:20pm, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It's unclear at what point during the preceding hour Paddock died. (More Las Vegas shooting stories.)

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