Las Vegas Shooting—Three Unanswered Questions 5 Years on From Tragedy

October 1 marks the fifth anniversary of the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada that left 58 people dead and more than 800 injured after a man opened fire on a concert.

Stephen Paddock opened fire into a crowd of 22,000 country music fans from a hotel room at the the Mandalay Bay casino hotel in Las Vegas in 2017 and later took his own life before police could arrest him.

Five years on from the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, many believe there are still questions to be answered about the shooter's motive and the police response.

The shooting led to a federal ban on bump stocks, which the shooter had used, which is still subject to legal challenges.

Here are three outstanding questions from the Las Vegas shooting.

1. What Was the Motive?

Speculation was rife at the time of the mass shooting about why Paddock had carried out the deadly attack and years later there are still questions about his motive.

An FBI report about the shooting published in 2019 was just three pages long and did not identify a motive 16 months after the incident and with more than 1,000 FBI employees working on the case. A Las Vegas police report into the matter was 187 pages long but also did not identify Paddock's motive.

While some survivors criticized the FBI's short report, Aaron Rouse, special agent in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas office, said in 2017 that it was a "mischaracterization" to say that not identifying a motive was a failure by the agency.

"Everything that could be done to figure out why has been done," Rouse said.

Then President Donald Trump addressed the lack of a motive in an interview with The Daily Caller at the time, saying: "I was a little surprised and a lot disappointed that they weren't able to find the reason, because you'd like to find a reason for that and stop it."

Police said there was "no evidence of radicalization or ideology to support any theory that Paddock supported or followed any hate group or any domestic or foreign terrorist organization" and that Paddock's declining wealth over the previous two years "could have been a contributing factor."

2. How Did He Get Weapons into the Hotel Room?

The shooting took place from a 32nd floor hotel suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel and Paddock used multiple rifles during the attack, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in 2017.

Police found at least 23 firearms in the hotel room and questions have continued about how Paddock was able to get so many weapons into the suite. Hundreds of rounds of ammunition were also found there along with two rifles with scopes set up on tripods in front of two big windows, according to an official who spoke to The New York Times in 2017 on condition of anonymity.

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said Paddock had brought at least 10 suitcases into the hotel.

Questions were also raised about the fact that Paddock had installed surveillance cameras on the door his suite.

In 2019, the Mandalay Bay hotel's parent company, MGM Resorts, reached a $735 million settlement with the survivors of the shooting. The settlement was not an admission of liability.

3. Did Police Respond Fast Enough?

Paddock was able to shoot dead 58 people and injure more than 800 others and take his own life before police entered the hotel room. That has led to questions about the police response.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, questions were raised about the speed of the police response. Paddock shot a hotel security guard through his hotel room door six minutes before opening fire on the crowd and stopped shooting after 10 minutes.

The first police officer arrived at the scene two minutes after Paddock stopped shooting, while officers entered the room 15 minutes after he stopped shooting, according to a 2017 BBC News report citing Sheriff Lombardo.

Concerns were also raised about whether police should have evacuated the hotel and whether they acted too slowly when they arrived. However, experts who spoke to the Associated Press (AP) in 2018 were divided on whether the police response was adequate.

Bernard Zapor, a former agent in charge with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Milwaukee and Phoenix, told AP: "Every door they pass or come in contact with is a potential adversary.

"For the amount of people who were in there, you are basically having an active-shooter scene in a small city. The complexity of this is unimaginable. I think they did everything they were supposed to do."

Retired North Las Vegas police lieutenant, SWAT officer and Marine Tim Bedwell said he believed police did not act fast enough.

"They should have gone directly to that room, breached that room and engaged the threat," he said.

In 2019, Las Vegas police issued a report containing 93 recommendations arising from their handling of the shooting that described communications difficulties on the day and recommended, among other measures, requirements on planning ahead with neighboring police, fire, hospital and coroner officials and making sure more paramedics and trauma kits are available at large-scale events.

Newsweek has asked the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for comment.