How Las Vegas cops caught Stephen Paddock in a ‘needle in a haystack’ hunt in middle of chaos

ANALYSIS: Las Vegas cops faced the impossible — a 3000-room hotel and hundreds of casualties. But an act of chance saw them find a ‘needle in a haystack’.

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WHEN frantic calls began to flood in to Las Vegas police about a gunman peppering thousands of rounds of bullets down on a huge gathered crowd from a nearby high-rise, authorities faced a ‘needle in a haystack’ scenario.

Officers couldn’t immediately be sure where Stephen Paddock was firing from, whether he was acting alone, if he was on the move or in a static location and whether he had other plans.

They also had to juggle their urgent hunt with the logistical response to the horrific attack, which left 59 people dead and 527 injured.

Russell Boon, an Australian consultant on public safety and crisis response, described the scenario that met authorities yesterday as “overwhelming”.

It took 72 minutes from the first 911 call to locate the shooter, who was dead in his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort when the SWAT team blew down the door.

The Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas from above. Picture: Supplied/Twitter

This undated photo shows Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock. Picture: AP

“For Vegas, a very high-density and well-populated area, with a massive public event taking place, a lot of misinformation, I think the emergency response was a job well done,” Mr Boon, the managing director of Capacity Building Emergency Management, said.

“In random, unexpected events like this it can take a little while to sort out what’s happening — it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”

There were multiple false reports that circulated in the midst of the unfolding situation, which began Sunday at 10.08pm local time (Monday 4.08pm AEST) on the famed Las Vegas strip.

A wounded woman is moved outside the Tropicana during the shooting. Picture: AP

“We saw again in this incident reports of other attackers, of it being a co-ordinated response, so police had to sift through a huge amount of information,” Mr Boon said.

“A high-profile incident requires a covert and overt (response) ... plus they would’ve been inundated with hundreds of injured people and dozens of actual victims.”

It was something of an act of chance that suddenly led police to the door of room 32,135.

Inside, Paddock had fired off such an enormous volume of rounds that his suite filled with smoke and set off alarms.

While his motive remains unclear, his target was the 22,000-strong crowd below who had been enjoying the Harvest Country Music Festival.

The death toll represents America’s deadliest mass shooting, but Mr Boon believes that figure could’ve been higher given there were so many people in a confined space and a crazed attacker with at least 18 high-powered and automatic weapons at his disposal.

“The investigation is ongoing and circumstances are unclear but I’m a bit surprised more people didn’t lose their lives,” he said.

“People have said they hid behind a building or under cars — they took cover — and that seems to have been the best approach.”

Police officers advise people to take cover near the scene of a shooting near the Mandalay Bay Resort. Picture: AP

Public events like these are “incredibly easy targets” no matter the attacker’s motive, he said, from the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester where a terrorist let off an explosive device to the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, France.

“We’re getting better at protecting them but it’s just impossible to make everybody safe all the time, everywhere,” Mr Boon said. “It’s a scary reality.”

America has seen these types of mass shootings on multiple occasions in recent years, he said. Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Pulse Nightclub — authorities have had plenty of practice.

Facebook image of Route 91 Country Music Festival at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas before the shooting happened.

People take cover after a man opened fire, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. Picture: Getty

But something new in this attack was a public advisory issued by Las Vegas police while officers hunted down Paddock.

“It essentially asked people not to be ‘spontaneous citizen defenders’ or, essentially, don’t get your gun and come down to help us hunt the perpetrator.

“It’s a bit of an eye-opener to imagine armed citizens volunteering to join in a shootout.”

Australia’s response in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 has been praised by gun control advocates in the US, held up as an example of how the country should deal with its worsening problem.

And while our view of guns is in stark contrast to that of Americans, Mr Boon - who authored the book Think, Decide, Act - said something similar to the Las Vegas attack could happen here.

“On the surface, our gun culture is absolutely nothing like the US. The proliferation of guns is not as dense. But the recent national gun amnesty highlights there are a substantial number of unlicensed and unregistered firearms in society.”

That, combined with organised crime enterprises seeking to import more powerful weapons into Australia, should be a concern.

“In some parts of the community, we’re seeing incidents of gun crime on a weekly basis, at levels perhaps many of us haven’t seen before.”

Originally published as How Las Vegas cops caught Stephen Paddock in a ‘needle in a haystack’ hunt in middle of chaos