Las Vegas shooting: Gunman was planning more attacks and a CAR BOMB, police reveal
THE LAS Vegas gunman could have been planning further attacks including a massive car bomb, according to US authorities.
Stephen Paddock’s reign of terror led him to shoot dead 58 people and injure more than 515 at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday.
But there are fears the multi-millionaire real estate investor had plans to carry out further attacks - including a deadly car bomb.
Paddock, who committed the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history, had also scouted possible locations in Chicago and Boston.
He booked two rooms during the Lollapalooza music festival in August at Chicago's Blackstone hotel, which overlooks the expansive downtown park where the popular event was held, according to the website TMZ and NBC News.
The 64-year-old gambler and retired accountant also researched hotels around Boston's Fenway Park baseball stadium, but there was no indication he travelled to the city, NBC News reported, citing senior law enforcement officials.
Authorities discovered Paddock's interest in the two cities by examining his communications and electronic equipment, NBC News said.
Hundreds of thousands attended the Lollapalooza festival at Chicago's Grant Park, including Malia Obama, the former president's daughter.
Paddock never showed up for his Chicago booking, according to the media reports, but the August 2-5 timing may have offered him an opportunity similar to the Las Vegas Strip concert Sunday night.
When Paddock rained bullets from a nearby hotel tower into crowds attending the outdoor Route 91 Harvest festival he left carnage in his wake.
Investigators have said the attack was meticulously planned.
Officials in Chicago beefed-up security for a weekend marathon in which more than one million spectators and about 40,000 participants were expected.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, said: ”We are constantly revising and asking fundamental questions."
The police department added more than 1,000 officers to its marathon security deployment.
Anthony Riccio, chief of Chicago police's organised crime bureau, said: ”One of the things that we're doing is we're putting a significantly larger number of undercover officers.
“They're going to be intermingled with the crowd. They're going to be around the runners.”
Investigators are still searching for a motive but have not got very far.
Paddock led such a private life that no one seemed to know him well, and those who did had no sense he was capable of gunning down 58 people and injuring hundreds more before killing himself.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said he was surprised Paddock had provided so few clues, and that has proved challenging.
Clark County Sheriff on Wednesday night said Paddock had rented an apartment in another high-rise above another music festival a week earlier, though he could not say why.
And he said he felt it was unlikely Paddock could have pulled off the elaborate plan alone, though investigators have no idea who may have helped him.