In “Mapping the massacre” I posted the remarkable New York Times video mapping the Las Vegas massacre. The Times prefaced the video with this brief summary: “The shots began at 10:05. Twelve bursts of gunfire later, police broke down Stephen Paddock’s door at the Mandalay Bay. Using forensic analysis, The Times mapped 30 videos that show a vivid picture of what happened that night.”
I had (and have) no comments of my own. I just wanted to bring the video to the attention of readers to make of it what they could. My friend Tim Kelly is a formidable trial lawyer and one such reader. Tim is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War whose guidance I sought in my “Notes on the Ken Burns version” and a former law clerk to Chief Justice Burger. He now works with the Minneapolis office of the Dykema law firm. Tim wrote to comment on the video:
Read your piece and viewed the NYT timeline, which was good journalism and helped me understand what happened.
Does not appear that Las Vegas Police Department, county sheriffs or Mandalay security fired a single shot.
Looks like the shooter fired over 900 rounds without any return fire and the murder only stopped when the shooter realized that the PD was going to breach so he committed suicide, proving he was both a coward and a murderer. We have moved in to something of a pacifist mode in response to terrorists. The journalists seem oblivious to the fact that the PD and others did not protect the crowd.
The obvious answer to copycats of Paddock is to place snipers on the roofs of the casinos when outdoor events occur. But I do not think even that will protect people because PDs will be so worried of a sniper hitting the wrong person that they will not allow them to fire unless some senior person has okayed a shot. That will defeat this defensive measure.
By the way, I hope the victims sue Mandalay for a boatload. It provided the perch for the shooter and allowed him to bring an arsenal in to the room; then failed to respond timely after he shot the security guard.
I have posted the Times video one more time below so that interested readers can take a look if they missed it over the weekend.
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