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Monday, October 2, 2017

The Las Vegas shooter

Whenever a mass shooting occurs, the early information -- anyone's own theorizing -- is inevitably misleading. The initial reports this morning said that two people were killed and 20 wounded in last night's deadly attack.

It's now reported to be the deadliest mass shooting in US history, and with 527 reported injured, the current number of dead, 58, is almost sure to rise.

My first thoughts, like a lot of peoples', turned to ISIS. But then it turned out that the shooter, 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock, was just a regular old American.

As the death toll mounted, ISIS claimed responsibility, but then the FBI said that the shooter had no  connection. (It does seem that ISIS would take credit for Hurricane Harvey if they could.)

I wondered if his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, who I heard was of Indonesian descent, might have had something to do with it. (Indonesia is a Muslim country.) She was initially reported to be in Las Vegas, then missing, then another report came out that she had been detained in a foreign country. Now, I'm hearing that she was visiting relatives in the Philippines when this happened, which would indicate that she is Filipino, and therefore less likely to be Muslim.

I also thought, aha, Paddock must be ex-military. He understood the tactical advantage of shooting from the higher elevation, he knew how to use a fully automatic rifle, he was old enough to have been drafted, and he was a deadly shooter. All of this pointed to a guy with training.

But, it turned out, he wasn't. He had been an accountant, and bookkeeper, and had most recently had described himself as a professional gambler.

The most interesting report was that Paddock's father had made the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list as a bank robber, then escaped prisoner, back in the 60's. At the time the father was reported to have been diagnosed "as psychopathic." And, as it turns out, his father was also an avid gambler.

(Family background almost always provides the why of a killer's personality.)

Maybe part of Stephen's motivation was that he wanted to outdo his father in terms of badness.

Paddock himself had not been unsuccessful: his brother reported that he had been a multimillionaire real estate investor.

This is the first case of a multimillionaire mass shooter I've heard of. Given that this country had treated him so well, his final act was the ultimate in ingratitude.

It's also been reported that he was a heavy gambler, and moved to Nevada so he could gamble more. is it possible that he had gambled his fortune away and felt that at age 64 he had nothing left to lose? That's not clear yet either.

Is it possible he had just gotten some bad news about his health, possibly a cancer diagnosis, and just didn't want to face an infirm old age?

One of the worst things about all these mass shootings is that they always seem to target young people. Whether they take place at a concert, a school, or a nightclub, it's mostly young people, who had their entire lives ahead of them, who are massacred.

His family was evident shocked by the massacre, or at least claimed to be. Some of his former neighbors were shocked, too. They described him as a nice, friendly guy. But another report mentioned neighbors in Nevada who had described him as "aggressively unfriendly."

So which was it?

What is Paddock's psychological diagnosis? The first thing that comes to mind is, sociopath. But while basically all serial killers are sociopaths, mass shooters are more likely to have Aspergers Syndrome. But most killers are also relatively young, Paddock was not only the deadliest shooter in US history, but, at 64, also the oldest.

In any case, we just don't know enough about him to say. The fact that Paddock's father was diagnosed as a psychopath,would tend to lead us in that direction. The fact that he was apparently a gambling addict is another clue leading in that direction. And there's no questioning the evilness of his act. But we'd have to have more of a sense of his entire life, especially his upbringing and his relationships, before we can be sure.

The truth about Paddock will gradually emerge. But at times like this, sometimes it almost seems as if it's not even worth reading any of the reports -- or formulating any theories of your own -- until the second or third day.

23 comments:

Mark Caplan said...

Your comment that mass shooters are often Aspies led me to look as Asperger's and gambling addiction. The two mental disorders often go together. Paddock was addicted mainly to video poker, which I gather normally has a small edge in the house's favor even for highly skilled and disciplined players, meaning the more you play, the more you're inevitably going to lose. Paddock's bank-robber father was also reportedly a compulsive gambler.

John Craig said...

Mark --
Interesting, thanks. I've always seen gambling and sex addiction as offshoots of sociopathy, since sociopaths have fewer inhibitions and are more susceptible to temptation. "Normal" people may do those things, but don't seem likely to become "addicted" to them, as they are not physically addictive the same way.

But I could see Aspies becoming so focused on something like video poker that they would essentially become fixated on it, to the exclusion of other things.

The weird thing about Paddock is, he was 64, and if he had some identifiable syndrome, you'd think it would have made itself abundantly apparent by that age. Yet he seems to have led a relatively unremarkable life up until very recently. And, he was relatively functional, having been successful at real estate investing and owning two small planes. Plus, his family at least claims to have thought he was completely normal, and he had a live in girlfriend. None of this follows the pattern of "weird, bitter recluse" that you associate with such mass murders.

Anonymous said...

I read on another website that the shooter did a fake slip and fall in a casino, sued the casino, but lost the lawsuit. The lawsuit was a scam.

- Susan

John Craig said...

Susan --
He's sounding more and more like a sociopath.

Anonymous said...

ISIS claims that the shooter was a member of their group, despite the FBI stating that he wasn't. Also, the man wired $100,000.00 to his live-in girlfriend about a week ago. The girlfriend is in the Philippines, visiting her family. I don't know why he was bent on murdering people, the motive behind his actions.

- Susan

GT said...

John said: As the death toll mounted, ISIS claimed responsibility, but then the FBI said that the shooter had no  connection. (It does seem that ISIS would take credit for Hurricane Harvey if they could.)

Has ISIS ever taken credit when it was not somewhat involved. Maybe they are getting desperate but I think this would be the 1st time for such an event. I would agree, the odds do not seem to favor ISIS recruiting a 64 year old white male.



John Craig said...

Susan --
We should get a better sense of him over the next few days.

John Craig said...

GT --
Good point. I can't name any such incident, but it's been my vague impression that they have. But you're right, I (at the very least) overstated the case, and am assuming they're getting desperate because they've lost ground in the Middle East.

And, I guess, I'm partly saying that because I'm assuming that a guy like Paddock would have been immune to them.

Anonymous said...

Sorry for repeating what was already mentioned in your post. I've been reading about this guy on another website and simply repeated the information here. I just don't get why the man murdered a ton of innocent people, injuring quite a few as well.

- Susan


John Craig said...

Susan --
Right now from what I can see he just looks like a sociopath who figured he ha nothing to lose and wanted to go out with a splash. I wouldn't be surprised if gambling debts figure into this.

Anonymous said...

Why are there fewer postal shooters in the news? Some disgruntled person who just snaps and kills? Maybe there are still here but they don't make it to the media. Other mass shootings, organized kinds like the massacre in a casino by Los Zetas don't get as much attention either.

Hell it seems we forget about terror attacks or professional organized mass murder much more quickly even if they are responsible for more deaths. I think the largest source of death in total through mass murder is by organized Political/Muslim terrorists and groups like Cartels. It's like we are desensitized enough to them that we don't care as much. Mcveigh and Breivik, just two white political fanatics received far far more attention than perpetrators behind the tens, maybe now hundreds of thousands of people who have been gunned down, blown up, beaten, or starved to death in Central/Latin America or the Middle east throughout this century.

Every recent mass shooter who has been given any politicized attention has a mental disorder/crazy or is a white political fanatic. I did check wikipedia to see a list of massacres to confirm, there were many and some listed were not by those two, they were postal shootings, terrorist recruits, and organized crime, but those don't make the news, or they do but last a few days.

If this guy did just want to go out with a splash like you suspect John, they won't say that. People will claim he belonged to this or that political party or religion like they did with Loughner, who was just a psychotic nutjob who believed in the NWO and that the 2012 apocalypse was coming. They both claimed he was a right wing christian extremist and a left wing nihilist communist agent....

I wonder if they want to distract us from something or only put out what will sell. The left likes to say "if it's a brown guy they say muslim! a latino, a drug dealer!" but if he's white they will say mental illness"!

Well if someone does go and shoot a bunch of people and you ask him why, if he says "alien pink rats secretly controlling our minds!" he has a mental disorder, if he says "In the name of Al Quaeda!" then he is a muslim terrorist! or if he admits to being a hitman for a mafia/cartel then he is one! And it turns out white americans are less likely to belong to the muslim religion or work for Los Zetas, so if they do shoot a bunch of people they most likely belong to the first group!

I still think the glossing over the postal shooters is that there are not "in" now, viewers aren't interested. A guy who pulls a 100 hour week, gets cheated on and left by his wife for his best friend, finds his cat tortured to death by neighborhood bullies, sees his car tires slashed who then snaps and shoots people in his office.... The case was closed from the beginning. Nothing to politicize, nothing to argue about, no chance to flaunt your own ideology on your radio talk show.

I guess at least some decades from now, shootings by mentally disorder people will fade. They are now finding ways to screen for risk of developing autism in infants before toddlerhood (so early intervention) and also finding signs of the chance of developing schizophrenia/bipolar in young children before any symptoms show.

Everything I wrote is all jumbled I realize. Forgetting vocabulary and describing it in a very long round about way, using weird neologisms because I forgot the original way fo saying something, but I am trying to get something across. Please let me know if you can decipher what I wrote, I kinda have some legitimate mild thought and verbal coherance disorders. I used to be able to compose great constructed essays, have a good vocabulary, but now it all gets jumbled since I went through puberty, which happened quite late, my voice didn't crack till 17. Wait, where was I? I also get off track a lot. It's nighttime here so my ritalin has worn off.

-Ga

John Craig said...

Ga --
Some of your thoughts came through. If in the future you find yourself writing something less coherent, hold off on sending it until you rewrite it. (My first drafts of posts look something like this, I just scribble a bunch of thoughts down, then get them organized and going more logically from one thought to the next the second and third time around.)

BTW, Paddock actually did work as a mail carrier from 1976 to 1978, one of the facts that has emerged about him. My first thought was, of course, ah, he went postal. But that's pretty ancient history at this point.

I'm not sure what to do about these mass shootings. Was thinking about maybe writing a post about it. (A pessimistic one.)

Lucian Lafayette said...

Evening John,

As you pointed out, Paddock certainly doesn't fit the model of any sort of "thrill killer" or mass shooter. Age sort of puts a damper on impulsive violent behavior and financial success frequently goes hand in hand with a lower probability of causing physical injury directly to another human being. Perhaps this does play into his choice of shooting into a mass of indistinguishable people from a distance rather than walking out into the casino and firing into the crowd there at close range.

As far as I have been able to tell, Paddock had no history of violence or impulsive behavior aside from what looks like a gambling addiction. This sets him apart from shooters like Charles Whitman and john Muhammad who also chose to shoot at targets from a distance but had long histories of violence or threatening actions.

We always want to find answers to situations like this but sometimes there just aren't any easy ones.

Luke

John Craig said...

Luke --
That's an excellent summation of the situation. There are some reports that he was a nasty guy, but others that he was nice enough. But going berserk at 64? It just doesn't happen, unless there was some sot of brain injury or something. No FBI profiler would have ever picked this guy to run amok like this. He had money (unless he had recently gambled it all away), he had a long term girlfriend (unlike all those Aspie mass shooters), and his brother claims to be shocked. None of it, as you say, fits the model.

It's going to be interesting to see what develops.

John Craig said...

GT --
PS -- I was told today that ISIS claimed to be behind the casino shooting in the Philippines, when they were not.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the advice, I should also write when I have my ritalin in my system too.

heh he did go postal.

-Ga

Anonymous said...

Some people are questioning whether the mass murderer acted alone. It's been suggested that a certain American agency could be involved.

- birdie

John Craig said...

Birdie --
I heard those rumors yesterday too, and last night the Las Vegas chief of Police said that Paddock almost certainly had to have had help somewhere along the line. And that he had had an escape route planned. The plot thickens.

GT said...

GT --
PS -- I was told today that ISIS claimed to be behind the casino shooting in the Philippines, when they were not.

It would be a small bit of good news if ISIS was not involved in some way.

John Craig said...

GT --
You're right. But the case is currently looking like it's more complicated than they let on at first. The Las Vegas sheriff said Paddock had to have had help somewhere along the way; the mystery woman who was seen with him; the scattered reports of multiple shooters; and the possible suicide note whose contents haven't been divulged. Plus how would a guy like that have known of the top secret US fuel tanks which he also aimed for?

Anonymous said...

I read in a couple of places that the killer was an arms smuggling pilot for the CIA. The more that I read, I suspect this act was done by the Deep State.

- birdie

John Craig said...

Birdie --
There's a lot of suspicious stuff that doesn't quite add up.

Anonymous said...

Agree.

- birdie