Five months after Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd of concert-goers from his 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay, there have been more questions than answers in the slow-moving investigation. Some of those questions are finally being answered after the New York Times obtained security footage of Paddock in the days leading up the massacre.
Over the course of seven days, Paddock goes to and from the hotel multiple times, interacting with employees in a completely normal fashion. The valet workers take his keys, while the bellhops load up his bags, 21 in total, which were filled with weapons and ammunition, and take them to his suite.
He appeared to have a good rapport with the hotel employees. When he was with the bellhops he can be seen cracking jokes and was always sure to tip them. When he was on the casino floor, where he spent most of his time playing high-stakes video poker, he was treated as a regular by the hosts scattered around the casino floor.
Paddock kept mostly to himself, only interacting with hotel and casino staff when necessary. None of his actions appeared out of the ordinary and nobody suspected that he was planning to spray bullets into a large crowd attending an outdoor concert.
MGM Resorts issued a statement pointing out that the footage "gave no indication of what he planned to do and his interactions with staff and overall behavior were all normal."
“In the interest of providing greater context around Stephen Paddock’s actions in the days leading up to October 1, MGM Resorts has released these security videos and images. As the security footage demonstrates, Stephen Paddock gave no indication of what he planned to do and his interactions with staff and overall behavior were all normal. MGM and Mandalay Bay could not reasonably foresee that a long-time guest with no known history of threats or violence and behaving in a manner that appeared outwardly normal, would carry out such an inexplicably evil, violent and deadly act.
Our focus continues to be on supporting victims and their families, our guests and employees, and cooperating with law enforcement with their ongoing investigation.”