LAS VEGAS – The Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino shooting in Las Vegas by Stephen Craig Paddock, 64, is now the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Eleven hours after the first calls came in to Las Vegas 911 operators, 58 people were confirmed dead by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, with another 515 people injured.
The shooting of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip highlights the deadly results that can occur when two conditions co-exist: a gunman out to kill as many people as possible paired with his shooting position of “high-ground” above intended targets.
“His choice of the 32nd floor was to put him in tactical control of the crowd,” retired Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary said. “He knew exactly what he was going to be dealing with when the first responders reacted to him.”
Beary is referring to the fact that in tactical training, for both military and law enforcement personnel, situational advantage, either offensive or defensive, is usually attained when facing a downward-looking position, meaning a person up high has the upper hand and can see everything.
“The military always says, 'Grab the high ground, because the high ground can control whatever is going on around them,'” Beary said. “When you’re 32 floors on top of everybody, you’re definitely in control.”
Beary ran the Orange County Sheriff’s Office from 1993 to 2009 and now serves as a law enforcement consultant. He said that many Central Florida police departments regularly train each year for a variety of unusual and high-risk scenarios, relying on help and guidance from the National Tactical Officers Association, the Florida SWAT Association and the Texas Tactical Officers Association.
Texas, in fact, was the first city to experience what is emerging as a very deadly trend. In 1966, a gunman took up a position some 27 stories high in the clock tower of the Main Building on the campus of the University of Texas-Austin. The sniper was able to kill 14 people from his perch before being killed by two Austin police officers. Thirty-one other people were injured. A fifteenth victim died in 2001.
“You have to learn from these different incidents,” Beary said. “That’s how you bring your people in to the training. You share what works and what didn’t work.”
Beary is concerned that obvious terrorism targets such as airplanes, airports and embassies are being set aside for less secure venues such as public transportation, sporting events and now concerts.
“After this, soft targets like hotels will definitely have to tighten up their security,” Beary said. “Times are changing. Terrorist tactics are changing. We need to get in the 21st century.”
Beary told News 6 that helicopters, assault teams from the roof and using tactics from above are ways to defeat the high ground. He said he knows of some agencies capable of putting weapons on their helicopters in response to situations similar to Mandalay Bay.
“You do not go after a guy with an AK-47 with a damn butter knife,” he said.
Beary believes the shooting from Mandalay Bay may very well serve as a wakeup call to law enforcement agencies and community leaders, who will be challenged in the very near future to make some wide-sweeping tactical decisions.
“You may see where SWAT teams are deployed on rooftops to protect people,” Beary said. “If they control the high-ground, that’s definitely a deterrent.”
Timeline of high-ground shooters
Stephen Craig Paddock was not the first gunman to use a high-covered position as an advantage for a mass shooting:
Aug. 1, 1966 | Austin, TX: This was the first time law enforcement would ever had to face off against a gunman shooting from a high position.
In the early morning hours of Aug. 1, 1966, Charles Craig Whitman, 25, a former Marine sharpshooter, killed his mother and his wife in their sleep. In the suicide note he left behind, he asked authorities to perform an autopsy on his remains to see if he had any mental abnormalities. Part of his suicide note also read “I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.” A neuropathologist would later find a pecan-sized tumor in Whitman’s brain leading to speculation mental illness played a role in his behavior.
After slaying his mother and wife, Whitman drove to the Main Building at The University of Texas at Austin, arriving about 11:30 a.m. He was able to bluff his way into the parking lot by stating he was a research assistant taking equipment into the building. Whitman brought with him an M1 Carbine rifle, a sawed off shotgun, a 35-caliber Remington 141 pump rifle, a 9-mm Luger pistol, a 25-caliber Galesi-Brescia pistol, a Smith & Wesson M19 handgun and a Remington 700 hunting rifle. He loaded his arsenal on a cart and headed up to the building’s top floor and observation deck.
His third victim was the observation desk receptionist, whom he bludgeoned to death with the butt of a rifle. Whitman then proceeded up to the clock tower and, after settling in, opened fire on unsuspecting civilians below.
The first person hit by a bullet was 18-year-old Claire Wilson. Whitman’s initial barrage tore into her stomach and pierced the skull of an 8-month-old baby Wilson was carrying. The fetus, later named Baby Boy Wilson, died before being born. Some historians count Baby Boy Wilson as the first victim of Whitman’s tower shooting, but because Wilson was never born, some do not.
After 96 minutes of shooting, 13 more people would be dead with 31 more injured. David Hubert Gunby, injured that day by Whitman’s bullets, died of his injuries 35 years later in 2001. Gunby is considered the sixteenth victim of the day’s events; seventeenth if including Baby Boy Wilson.
One of the biggest obstacles for police to overcome in the Texas tower shooting was that most of the responding officers were only equipped with handguns that needed to be manually loaded. No one at the time possessed any sort of weaponry that could accurately reach Whitman, who was perched about 300 feet above the ground. Whitman was eventually killed by two Austin police officers who worked their way up to the observation deck and surprised the gunman.
The shooting at The University of Texas at Austin was part of a wake-up call to police departments around the nation, which started building specialized units to deal with unusual circumstances.
Jan. 7, 1973 | New Orleans: Gunman Mark James Robert Essex opened fire from the top floor of the New Orleans Howard Johnson’s Hotel. The 25-year-old former Navy sailor's killing spree started a week before. On New Year’s Eve 1972, Essex fatally shot a 19-year-old police cadet a block away from police headquarters and later that evening killed a K-9 officer. Essex, who was African-American, sent a letter to local CBS affiliate WWL-TV after the New Year’s Eve shootings, saying he was only targeting white people, even though the cadet was also African-American.
Essex was able to avoid a citywide manhunt for a week until he embarked on his final acts on Jan. 7, 1973. He stole a car and drove to the Howard Johnson’s Hotel across from City Hall, there he killed a couple vacationing from Virginia as well as the hotel’s assistant manager. He also shot the hotel’s general manager. Essex then set fire to multiple hotel rooms, not in an effort to burn down the building, but instead to create a trap for first responders. Once the fire department arrived and firefighters tried to use a truck ladder to get to the burning rooms, Essex shot at them, wounding two firefighters.
Now set up on the 18th floor, Essex started shooting at the crowd assembled below. He shot and killed two more police officers as well as the New Orleans Police Department’s deputy superintendent. Essex retreated to the roof of the hotel where he then engaged in an hourslong firefight with the NOPD as well as military personnel shooting from a Marine CH-46 helicopter. After almost 12 hours, Essex was finally killed by a barrage of gunfire from the helicopter and police sharpshooters who had set up on adjacent rooftops. When his body was recovered, it was riddled with some 200 bullet wounds.
In addition to the two officers killed on New Year’s Eve, three more NOPD personnel were killed along with three other people. A fourth person – the hotel’s general manager – died three weeks later.
July 7, 2016 | Dallas, TX: Micah X. Johnson, an Army Reserve veteran of he war in Afghanistan, killed five police officers and wounded nine other police officers and two civilians. Johnson targeted the police officers in response to a shooting in Baton Rouge days earlier when two white officers tackled Alton Sterling, an unarmed African-American male, outside a convenience store and then shot him during the struggle.
Johnson’s shooting spree started at the end of a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest and march in Dallas’ West End Historic District. Johnson started by shooting at officers and protestors on Main Street in front of the building housing El Centro College. Three officers died in this first barrage; two civilians and three other officers were injured. Johnson retreated to another side of the college on Lamar Street when he encountered Officer Brent Thompson. Thompson and Johnson’s encounter was captured on video. Johnson pinned Thompson behind a cement pillar, lured him to one side and then outflanked him, shooting Thompson from behind multiple times.
Johnson made his way into El Centro and shot and killed a fifth officer from the mezzanine level near the school’s library and cafeteria.
Police were able to corner Johnson on the second floor near the library where a two-hour standoff ensued. Police Chief David Brown eventually made the decision to bring the standoff to an end by sending in a bomb disposal robot carrying a pound of C-4 explosive. When the robot got within striking distance of Johnson, Dallas officers detonated the C-4, killing Johnson instantly. The actions of the Dallas Police Department would be the first known incident of a U.S. police force using a remote-controlled robot to kill a suspect.