Agent expects it won’t take FBI long to release Las Vegas shooting report
An FBI official said Tuesday that he thinks local and federal authorities will eventually come close to answering a central question remaining after the deadly Oct. 1 mass shooting on the Strip: why.
“Everyone wants to know why,” FBI Special Agent Aaron Rouse told an interviewer on radio station KNPR-FM’s “State of Nevada” program. “That includes the FBI, that includes Metropolitan police. And I believe when this is finalized, we’re going to come as close as possible to answering that question.”
A shooter fired into a crowd of more than 22,000 concertgoers outside Mandalay Bay, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more. Nearly two months have passed since the shooting, but the flow of information from authorities has largely halted.
The last media briefing was Oct. 13, and during that session, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo and Rouse provided little new information and took no media questions. Mounting unanswered questions have been accompanied by a lockdown of public records related to the shooting.
On Nov. 3, the Las Vegas Review-Journal sued to obtain 911 recordings and emergency-call logs from the night of the shooting, evidence crucial to informing the public about the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
When asked when the public could expect the FBI’s Route 91 Harvest festival shooting report, Rouse declined to provide a timeline.
“I doubt it’s going to take a very, very long time based upon what I know today,” he said. “But I want to get it right.”
FBI reports have come slowly after other mass shootings. For example, the agency took nearly five years to release findings after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which left 26 people dead in Newtown, Connecticut.
The report, which spanned more than 1,500 pages, was made public only last month.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.
