(MENAFN- Gulf Times) That terrorism or mass murders need not be linked to race or religion has been once again highlighted after a white man with no known affiliation to any ‘organisation' shot dead 59 people attending a concert at the Las Vegas Village and Festival Grounds in the US late Sunday.
More than 525 people, some of them critically, were also injured in the carnage. Stephen Paddock, the killer, was a 'wealthy 64-year-old who liked playing video poker in Nevada's ubiquitous casinos, according to his brother. His family and police grapple with a mass murder that came apparently out of the blue.
According to his brother Eric Paddock, Stephen 'absolutely had no mental problems or political motives that the family was aware of. He had 'nothing to do with any political organisation, religious organisation, no white supremacists, nothing - as far as I know, Eric said.
In Las Vegas, an FBI official said there was 'to this point no connection with an international terrorist group.
But several people said it is a terrorist attack and blamed ‘Western bias' for not calling it terrorism.
The social media was abuzz with chatterati that argued the shooting was an act of terror and it needed to be called so. Many were of the view that the attacker was not called a terrorist because he was a white man.
59 killed andover 525 hurtin Las Vegasmass shooting
l Gunman, 64, acted alone, had ‘no militant links'
l Trump calls shooting ‘act of pure evil'
A 64-year-old man armed with multiple machine guns strafed an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas from a high-rise hotel window on Sunday, slaughtering at least 59 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history before killing himself.
The barrage of gunfire from a 32nd-floor window of the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of 22,000 people lasted several minutes, sparking panic as throngs of music fans desperately cowered on the open ground, hemmed in by fellow concertgoers, while others at the edge tried to flee.
More than 525 people were injured - some by gunfire, some trampled - in the pandemonium adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip as police scrambled to locate the assailant.
Police yesterday identified the gunman as Stephen Paddock, who lived in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada.
They said they believed he acted alone and did not know why he attacked the crowd.
The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the massacre, but US officials said there was no evidence of that.
The preliminary death toll, which officials said could rise, surpassed last year's shooting massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
The dead in Las Vegas included a nurse, a government employee and an off-duty police officer.
Shocked survivors, some with blood on their clothing, wandered streets, where the flashing lights of the city's gaudy casinos blended with those of emergency vehicles.
Police said Paddock had no criminal record.
The gunman killed himself before police entered the hotel room from where he was firing, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters.
'We have no idea what his belief system was, Lombardo said. 'I can't get into the mind of a psychopath.
Federal officials said there was no evidence to link Paddock to militant organisations.
'We have determined to this point no connection with an international terrorist group, Aaron Rouse, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) field office in Las Vegas, told reporters.
'We advise caution on jumping to conclusions before the facts are in, CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in an e-mail.
Lombardo said there were more than 10 rifles in the room where Paddock killed himself.
His arsenal included multiple machine guns, according to a law enforcement official.
Trump said he would travel to Las Vegas tomorrow to meet with victims, their family members and first responders.
'It was an act of pure evil, said Trump, who later led a moment of silence at the White House in honour of the victims.
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