Fifty-eight people killed. More than 500 injured. And yet, nearly a month after the Las Vegas Strip experienced the worst mass shooting in modern American history, local and federal authorities are refusing to fill in the blanks. In the days after Oct. 1, when Stephen Paddock opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest festival crowd from his Mandalay Bay corner suite, Las Vegas police were hosting multiple news conferences a day. They released a comprehensive timeline, which ended up being wrong. They took it back, and tried to clarify the errors, but instead caused more confusion. At least twice this week, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has asked to speak with Sheriff Joe Lombardo about the shooting investigation. Both times, reporters were told by Carla Alston, the Police Department’s director of communications, that the sheriff “will not be conducting interviews.”
