NATION
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Stymied police seek public’s help in
uncovering Las Vegas gunman’s motive
LAS VEGAS (AP) —
After five days of scouring
the life of Las Vegas gunman
Stephen Paddock and chasing
1,000 leads, investigators
confessed Friday they still
don’t know what drove him
to mass murder, and they
announced plans to put up
billboards appealing for the
public’s help.
In their effort to find
any hint of his motive,
investigators were looking
into whether he was with a
prostitute days before the
shooting, scrutinizing cruises
he took and trying to make
sense of a cryptic note with
numbers jotted on it found
in his hotel room, a federal
official said.
So far, examinations of
Paddock’s politics, finances,
any possible radicalization
and his social behavior —
typical investigative avenues
that have helped uncover the
motive in past shootings —
have turned up little.
“We still do not have a clear
motive or reason why,” Clark
County Undersheriff Kevin
McMahill said. “We have
looked at literally everything.”
The FBI announced
that billboards would go up
around the city asking anyone
with information to phone
800-CALL-FBI.
“If you know something,
say something,” said Aaron
Rouse, agent in charge of the
Las Vegas FBI office. “We
will not stop until we have the
truth.”
Paddock, a reclusive
AP Photo/John Locher
Members of the FBI walk among piles of personal items
at the scene of a mass shooting Friday in Las Vegas. Ste-
phen Paddock opened fire on an outdoor music concert
on Sunday killing dozens and injuring hundreds.
64-year-old
high-stakes
gambler, rained bullets on
the crowd at a country music
festival Sunday night from his
32nd-floor hotel suite, killing
58 and wounding hundreds
before taking his own life.
McMahill said investiga-
tors had reviewed voluminous
video from the casino and
don’t think Paddock had an
accomplice in the shooting,
but they want to know if
anyone knew about his plot
beforehand.
Investigators
believe
Paddock hired a prostitute
in the days leading up to
the shooting and were inter-
viewing other call girls for
information, a U.S. official
briefed by federal law enforce-
ment officials said. The official
wasn’t authorized to discuss
the matter publicly and spoke
to The Associated Press on
condition of anonymity.
The official also disclosed
that Paddock took at least a
dozen cruises abroad in the
last few years, most of them
with his girlfriend, Marilou
Danley. At least one sailed to
the Middle East.
It is unusual to have so
few hints of a motive five
days after a mass shooting.
In previous mass killings or
terrorist attacks, killers left
notes, social media postings
and information on a computer
— or even phoned police.
“The lack of a social media
footprint is likely intentional,”
said Erroll Southers, director
of
homegrown
violent
extremism studies at the
University of Southern Cali-
fornia. “We’re so used to, in
the first 24 to 48 hours, being
able to review social media
posts. If they don’t leave us
a note behind or a manifesto
behind, and we’re not seeing
that, that’s what’s making this
longer.”
What officers have found
is that Paddock planned his
attack meticulously.
He requested an upper-
floor room overlooking the
festival, stockpiled 23 guns, a
dozen of them modified to fire
continuously like an automatic
weapon, and set up cameras
inside and outside his room
to watch for approaching
officers.
In a possible sign he was
contemplating massacres at
other sites, he also booked
rooms
overlooking
the
Lollapalooza festival in
Chicago in August and the
Life Is Beautiful show near the
Vegas Strip in late September,
according to authorities
reconstructing his movements
leading up to the deadliest
mass shooting in modern U.S.
history.
His arsenal also included
tracer rounds that can
improve a shooter’s firing
accuracy in the dark, a law
enforcement official told
AP. It wasn’t clear whether
Paddock fired any of the
illuminated bullets during
the high-rise massacre.
Paddock bought 1,000
rounds of the .308-caliber and
.223-caliber tracer ammuni-
tion from a private buyer he
met at a Phoenix gun show,
a law enforcement official
not authorized to comment
on the investigation said on
condition of anonymity.
East Oregonian
Page 11A
Supreme Court justice has
an elk as an office mate
WASHINGTON (AP) —
When Justice Neil Gorsuch
joined the Supreme Court
earlier this year he got Justice
Antonin Scalia’s seat, his
office and his elk, Leroy.
In recent appearances,
Gorsuch has been telling the
story of how the elk — actu-
ally just its mounted head —
came to be his office mate.
The story starts more than
a decade ago when Scalia
shot the elk on a hunting trip
and had its head mounted
and hung in his Supreme
Court office.
Gorsuch explained at an
event in Washington last
week that after Scalia died
in 2016 it seemed that the
elk was destined “to become
homeless.” That’s because
the elk head, part of an animal
estimated to have weighed
around 900 pounds, is “much
too much for anyone’s living
room wall,” Gorsuch said.
“And then someone got
the idea that Leroy might
make, well, a sort of unusual
welcome-to-the-neighbor-
hood gift for the new guy.
What a gift,” Gorsuch said.
Christopher Scalia, one of
the late justice’s nine children
and the co-editor of a collec-
tion of his father’s speeches
published this week, said in
a telephone interview that
his father shot the Rocky
Mountain elk on a hunting
trip in Colorado in 2003.
Though the justice had other
hunting trophies displayed in
his home including white tail
deer, an antelope or two and
a boar’s head, the elk was
Christopher J. Scalia by AP
Leroy the elk
“way too big for our house,”
Christopher Scalia said. So
Leroy took up residence at
the Supreme Court facing the
justice’s desk.
“He was proud of it and
he enjoyed showing it off,”
Christopher Scalia said.
After Scalia died, Leroy
was crated up and sent to
Summers in Colorado, he
said. And when Gorsuch
was nominated to the court,
Summers
asked
what
others were also thinking,
he said: Would Gorsuch,
a fellow conservative and
outdoorsman, take Leroy
back
to
Washington?
Gorsuch
“graciously
accepted,” Summers said.
So back across the country
Leroy went. Gorsuch joked
last week that he is actually
“delighted to share space with
Leroy” and that they “share a
few things in common.”
“Turns out, we’re both
native Coloradans. We both
received a rather shocking
summons to Washington,”
he said. “Neither of us is
ever going to forget Justice
Scalia.”
BRIEFLY
Wolf that he would resign Oct. 21.
Murphy, 65, has remained publicly silent,
other than a brief statement saying he would
seek help as he and his family work through
their “difficulties.”
He had been in the state Senate
representing suburban Pittsburgh when the
party carved up the shrinking population of
western Pennsylvania into new congressional
districts, creating a Republican-friendly
district tailored for Murphy.
U.S. states declare emergency
ahead of Tropical Storm Nate
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Tropical Storm
Nate gained force as it sped toward Mexico’s
Yucatan Peninsula Friday after drenching
Central America in rain that was blamed
for at least 21 deaths. Forecasters said it
was likely to reach the U.S. Gulf Coast as a
hurricane over the weekend.
Louisiana and Mississippi officials
declared states of state of emergency and
Louisiana ordered some people to evacuate
coastal areas and barrier islands ahead of
its expected landfall Saturday night or early
Sunday. Evacuations began at some offshore
oil platforms in the Gulf.
Mississippi’s government said it would
open 11 evacuation shelters in areas away
from the immediate coast, with buses
available for people who can’t drive.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center
warned that Nate could raise sea levels by 4
to 7 feet from Morgan City, Louisiana, to the
Alabama-Florida border. It had already had
caused deadly flooding in much of Central
America.
The center added metropolitan New
Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain to its latest
hurricane warning.
The storm had maximum sustained winds
of 60 mph by Friday afternoon and was
likely to strengthen over the northwestern
Caribbean Sea on Friday before brushing
by the Cancun region at the tip of Mexico’s
Yucatan Peninsula. It could hit the U.S. Gulf
coast near New Orleans.
AP Poll: Just 24 percent say
U.S. going in right direction
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just 24 percent
of Americans believe the country is heading
in the right direction after a tumultuous
stretch for President Donald Trump that
included the threat of war with North
Korea, stormy complaints about hurricane
relief and Trump’s equivocating about
white supremacists. That’s a 10-point drop
since June, according to a poll from The
Associated Press-NORC Center for Public
Affairs Research.
The decline in optimism about the
nation’s trajectory is particularly pronounced
among Republicans. In June, 60 percent of
Republicans said the country was headed in
the right direction; now it’s just 44 percent.
The broader picture for the president is
grim, too. Nearly 70 percent of Americans
say Trump isn’t level-headed, and majorities
say he’s not honest or a strong leader. More
than 60 percent disapprove of how he is
handling race relations, foreign policy and
immigration, among other issues.
Overall, 67 percent of Americans
disapprove of the job Trump is doing
in office, including about one-third of
Republicans.
Tracy Huelsman, a 40-year-old from
Louisville, Kentucky, is among them. A self-
described moderate Republican, Huelsman
said she’s particularly concerned about
the “divisiveness” she feels the president
promotes on social media.
“It’s scary in 2017 that we are in what
seems like a worse place in terms of
division,” said Huelsman, who did not vote
for Trump in last year’s election.
The assessments come after a turbulent
summer for Trump that included a major
White House shake-up, bringing the
departure of his chief of staff, top strategist
and press secretary. While the installment of
retired Marine Gen. John Kelly as chief of
staff has ushered in more day-to-day order
in the West Wing, the president has still
Bergdahl expected
to plead guilty to desertion,
misbehavior
AP Photo/Noah Berger
A San Francisco treat
In advance of Fleet Week performances, the U.S. Navy Blue Angels and Team
Oracle aerobatics pilot Sean D. Tucker fly over the San Francisco Bay during a
photo flight on Thursday.
stirred up numerous controversies, including
when he blamed “both sides” for the clashes
between white supremacists and counter-
protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.
U.S. Chamber sounds alarm
about a NAFTA pullout
WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s
biggest business group is warning the Trump
administration that a withdrawal from the
North American Free Trade Agreement
would be a “political and economic debacle”
that would cost hundreds of thousands of
U.S. jobs.
Talking with reporters Friday, John
Murphy, a senior official with the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber
would work to rally support for the trade
deal and against the administration’s hardline
demand for concessions from Canada and
Mexico. The comments were unusually blunt
for America’s biggest business group.
The Trump administration, which has
threatened to pull out of NAFTA if the three
countries can’t agree on far-reaching changes
to favor American interests, quickly returned
fire.
“The president has been clear that
NAFTA has been a disaster for many
Americans, and achieving his objectives
requires substantial change,” said Emily
Davis, spokeswoman for the Office of the
U.S. Trade Representative. “These changes
of course will be opposed by entrenched
Washington lobbyists and trade associations.
We have always understood that draining
the swamp would be controversial in
Washington.”
The fourth round of talks to overhaul
NAFTA, which was enacted 23 years ago, is
scheduled for next week in Washington.
Trump’s one-two punch hits
birth control, LGBT rights
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a one-two
punch elating religious conservatives,
President Donald Trump’s administration
is allowing more employers to opt out of
no-cost birth control for workers and issuing
sweeping religious-freedom directions that
could override many anti-discrimination
protections for LGBT people and others.
At a time when Trump finds himself
embattled on many fronts, the two directives
— issued almost simultaneously on Friday
— demonstrated the president’s eagerness to
retain the loyalty of social conservatives who
make up a key part of his base. Leaders of
that constituency were exultant.
“President Trump is demonstrating
his commitment to undoing the anti-faith
policies of the previous administration and
restoring true religious freedom,” said Tony
Perkins, president of the Family Research
Council.
Liberal advocacy groups, including those
supporting LGBT and reproductive rights,
were outraged.
“The Trump administration is saying to
employers, ‘If you want to discriminate, we
have your back,’” said Fatima Goss Graves,
president of National Women’s Law Center.
Her organization is among several that
are planning to challenge the birth-control
rollback in court. The American Civil
Liberties Union filed such a lawsuit less than
three hours after the rules were issued.
“The Trump administration is forcing
women to pay for their boss’ religious
beliefs,” said ACLU senior staff attorney
Brigitte Amiri. “We’re filing this lawsuit
because the federal government cannot
authorize discrimination against women in
the name of religion or otherwise.”
Abortion double-cross ends
congressman’s career
PITTSBURGH (AP) — U.S. Rep. Tim
Murphy had counted on his anti-abortion
record as one of many planks to help him get
elected to Congress eight times, and it was
his perceived personal betrayal of that record
that ended his career.
For Murphy, a practicing psychologist,
author and former commander in the Navy
Reserves who had made mental health
treatment a signature issue, everything began
falling apart when his hometown newspaper
revealed Tuesday that the congressman had
suggested a mistress get an abortion when
they thought she might be pregnant.
It was the beginning of the end for
Murphy’s 20-year political career.
Voters, talk show hosts, party officials
and anti-abortion activists turned against
Murphy. Two days later, Murphy informed
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Gov. Tom
WASHINGTON (AP) — Army Sgt.
Bowe Bergdahl, who was held captive by the
Taliban for half a decade after abandoning
his Afghanistan post, is expected to plead
guilty to desertion and misbehavior before
the enemy, two individuals with knowledge
of the case said.
Bergdahl’s decision to plead guilty
rather than face trial marks another twist
in an eight-year drama that caused the
nation to wrestle with difficult questions
of loyalty, negotiating with hostage takers
and America’s commitment not to leave its
troops behind. President Donald Trump has
called Bergdahl a “no-good traitor” who
“should have been executed.”
The decision by the 31-year-old Idaho
native leaves open whether he will return
to captivity for years — this time in a U.S.
prison — or receive a lesser sentence that
reflects the time the Taliban held him under
brutal conditions. He says he had been
caged, kept in darkness, beaten and chained
to a bed.
Bergdahl could face up to five years on
the desertion charge and a life sentence for
misbehavior.
Freed three years ago, Bergdahl had been
scheduled for trial in late October. He had
opted to let a judge rather than a military jury
decide his fate, but a guilty plea later this
month will spare the need for a trial.
ICE official: Agency will
arrest at California worksites
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In another
sign of escalating tensions between
President Donald Trump’s administration
and California, the nation’s top immigration
official said Friday his agency will have
“no choice” but to arrest immigrants who
are in the country illegally in California’s
neighborhoods and worksites.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
will also likely have to place immigrants
arrested in California in out-of-state
detention centers, ICE Acting Director
Thomas Homan said in a statement.
Homan’s comments came a day after
Gov. Jerry Brown signed bill SB54, or
sanctuary state legislation.
Starting Jan. 1, police will be barred
from asking people about their immigration
status or participating in federal immigration
enforcement activities. Jail officials only
will be allowed to transfer inmates to federal
immigration authorities if they have been
convicted of certain crimes.
“Ultimately, SB54 helps shield removable
aliens from immigration enforcement and
creates another magnet for more illegal
immigration, all at the expense of the safety
and security of the very people it purports to
protect,” Homan warned.
Federal immigration officials already
carry out sweeps targeting immigrants in
sanctuary cities and transfer many of their
detainees to out-of-state facilities.