Soldier in Las Vegas truck blast left note warning of ‘wake-up call’ over country’s ills

Las Vegas: A soldier who died in an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left a note saying it was a stunt to serve as a “wake-up call” over the country’s ills, investigators said on Friday.

Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, apparently harboured no ill will towards President-elect Donald Trump, Clark County sheriff’s officials said.

An ID belonging to Matthew Livelsberger found inside the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.Credit: AP

Livelsberger wrote in the note that he needed to “cleanse my mind” of the lives lost of people he knew and “the burden of the lives I took”.

“Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues,” said Spencer Evans, the FBI Special Agent in Charge, at a news conference.

The explosion on New Year’s Day caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the hotel.

In a letter found by authorities, who released only excerpts of it, Livelsberger wrote: “This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake-up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives.”

Investigators search a townhouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado the day after the blast.Credit: AP

Investigators have identified the Tesla driver – who was burnt beyond recognition – and the Clark County coroner’s office said his death was a suicide caused by gunshot wound.

Pentagon officials have declined to say whether Livelsberger may have been suffering from mental health problems but said they had turned his medical records over to police.

Livelsberger confided to a former girlfriend – who had served as an army nurse – that he faced significant pain and exhaustion, which she said were key symptoms of traumatic brain injury.

A 2012 file photo of US forces in Afghanistan.Credit: AP

Traumatic brain injury

Livelsberger was a five-time Bronze Star recipient, including one with a V device for valour under fire. He was very private but shared images and texts with Alicia Arritt, 39, who he met and began dating in Colorado in 2018. In the texts, he opened up about exhaustion, pain that kept him awake at night and reliving violence from his deployment in Afghanistan.

“My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he said to Arritt during the early days of their dating, according to text messages she provided to the Associated Press. “It’s refreshing to have such a nice person come along.”

Arritt also served on active duty in the army as a nurse from 2003 to 2007, deploying to the military’s massive medical complex in Germany, where she helped treat many soldiers with traumatic brain injuries and blast injuries from intense ground combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

She said the military failed to get Livelsberger the care he needed for symptoms she saw in him as early as 2018.

“He would go through periods of withdrawal, and he struggled with depression and memory loss,” Arritt said. “He said it was a blast injury. He got several concussions from that.”

Livelsberger also had a hard time with post-traumatic stress disorder and would relive some of the violence and killings he had a role in or had witnessed in Afghanistan.

“I would encourage him to get therapy, and he would give me reasons that he couldn’t,” Arritt said. “There was a lot of stigma in his unit; they were, you know, big, strong, Special Forces guys there. There was no weakness allowed – and mental health is weakness, is what they saw.”

The new details came as investigators sought to determine Livelsberger’s motive, including whether he sought to make a political point with the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has recently become a member of the president-elect’s inner circle. Neither Trump nor Musk was in Las Vegas early on Wednesday, the day of the explosion. Both attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at his Florida estate.

Musk spent an estimated $US250 million ($403 million) during the presidential campaign to support Trump, and Trump has named Musk, the world’s richest man, to co-lead an effort to find ways to cut the government’s size and spending.

Investigators suspect Livelsberger may have been planning a more damaging attack, but the steel-sided vehicle absorbed much of the force from the crudely built explosive.

Investigators know that a highly decorated army soldier shot himself inside a Tesla Cybertruck packed with fireworks just before it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel on New Year’s Day, but authorities say there are questions about why he chose that car and location.

One of the weapons found inside the Tesla Cybertruck.Credit: Las Vegas Police Department

“It’s not lost on us that it’s in front of the Trump building, that it’s a Tesla vehicle, but we don’t have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology,” Evans, the Las Vegas FBI’s special agent in charge, said on Thursday.

Asked on Friday whether Livelsberger had struggled with any mental health issues that may have prompted his suicide, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters: “The department has turned over all medical records to local law enforcement”.

A law enforcement official said investigators learnt through interviews that Livelsberger may have been in a fight with his wife about relationship issues shortly before he rented the Tesla on Saturday and bought the guns. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the investigation.

Clark County sheriff Kevin McMahill said on Thursday that Livelsberger might have been planning a more damaging attack but the steel-sided vehicle absorbed much of the force of the explosion.

The vehicle in the hours after the blast.Credit: Las Vegas Police Department

“The level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience,” said Kenny Cooper, a special agent in charge from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Authorities are still working to determine a motive. Among the charred items found inside the truck were a handgun at Livelsberger’s feet, another firearm, fireworks, a passport, a military ID, credit cards, an iPhone and a smartwatch, McMahill said. Authorities said both guns were purchased legally.

Livelsberger served in the Green Berets, highly trained special forces who work to counter terrorism abroad and train partners. He had served in the army since 2006, rising through the ranks with a long career of overseas assignments, deploying twice to Afghanistan and serving in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, the army said. He had recently returned from an overseas assignment in Germany and was on approved leave when he died, a US official said.

Authorities searched a townhouse in Livelsberger’s hometown on Thursday as part of the investigation. Neighbours said the man who lived there had a wife and a baby.

Cindy Helwig, who lives diagonally across a narrow street separating the homes, said she last saw the man she knew as Matthew about two weeks ago when he asked her if he could borrow a tool he needed to fix an SUV he was working on.

“He was a normal guy,” said Helwig, who said she last saw the wife and baby earlier this week.

The explosion of the truck, packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar rammed a ute into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people before being shot to death by police.

AP

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