Nevada’s hidden earthquake risk revealed as Las Vegas, Reno shake

Items are scattered across grocery store aisle floors in Fallon, Nev., after a magnitude 5.7 earthquake on April 13.
(Kaitlin Ritchie via Associated Press)

By Rong-Gong Lin II
Staff Writer 

May 4, 2026 3 AM PT

A recent series of earthquakes in Nevada has served as a jolting reminder of the state’s seismic risk.

It started with a scary earthquake near Reno, then more unsettling shaking near Las Vegas. Neither earthquake caused significant damage, but it has gotten Nevada talking about the large geological forces that caused them.

Although California is known for its seismic activity, experts say, the danger does not stop at the state line. There are many fault systems that crisscross the California-Nevada border, and one area scientists worry about is the Lake Tahoe Basin, according to Christie Rowe, director of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory.

“There are some big faults under the lake there,” she said. “They’ve had pretty major earthquakes in the past.”

The latest sizable quake in the Silver State in recent days struck at 1:17 a.m. Friday, a magnitude 5.2 about 40 miles east of Reno. Just two days earlier, a magnitude 4.4 rumbled in the desert about 60 miles north of Sin City, where some people reported weak shaking.

The area east of Reno also endured a flurry of seismic activity earlier in April. The most powerful of that series was a magnitude 5.7 earthquake 45 miles east of the city that was powerful enough to cause moderate-to-strong shaking in the small town of Silver Springs and knock items off shelves and out of cupboards, according to media reports. There were no reports of significant injuries or damage from that quake, which hit on April 13.

The spate of quakes is a reminder that earthquakes are indeed a threat to Nevada — less profound than the seismic risk in California, for sure, but every bit as real.

Las Vegas flooding: Multiple casinos, entire Strip, airport under water

FBI closes Las Vegas shooting case without discovering motive

By World Tribune on January 30, 2019




by WorldTribune Staff, January 30, 2019

The FBI on Jan. 29 reported that it ended its investigation into the Oct. 1, 2017 Las Vegas massacre and, after 16 months of investigating, could not determine a motive for the attack which left 58 people dead and hundreds wounded.

FBI special agent in charge Aaron Rouse said, “It wasn’t about MGM, Mandalay Bay or a specific casino or venue. It was all about doing the maximum amount of damage and him obtaining some form of infamy.”

But no specific motive was given for the massacre carried out by Stephen Paddock from his room in the Mandalay Bay hotel.

Related: Statement by Las Vegas policeman cites multiple active shooters on Oct. 1, 2017, Dec. 31, 2018

Paddock was not directed or inspired by any group and was not seeking to further any agenda, according to a report compiled by the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). He did not leave a manifesto or suicide note, and federal agents believe he had planned to fatally shoot himself after the attack, according to the report.

Paddock’s physical and mental health was declining, the 64-year-old’s wealth had diminished, and he struggled with aging, the report said.

The BAU’s report also said that Paddock was inspired in part by his father’s reputation as a bank robber who was once on the FBI’s most wanted list.

He was similar to other active shooters the FBI has studied – motivated by a complex merging of development issues, stress and interpersonal relationships, the report said.

His “decision to murder people while they were being entertained was consistent with his personality,” the report said.

“This report comes as close to understanding the why as we’re ever going to get,” Rouse said.

Las Vegas police closed their investigation into the shooting in August 2018.

Police characterized Paddock as a loner with no religious or political affiliations who began stockpiling weapons about a year before the attack, according to a report by The Associated Press. He spent more than $1.5 million in the two years before the shooting and distanced himself from his girlfriend and family.

Paddock sent his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, to visit her family in the Philippines two weeks before the attack and wired her $150,000 while she was there. Danley, a former casino worker in Reno, returned to the U.S. after the shooting and told authorities that Paddock had complained that he was sick and that doctors told him he had a “chemical imbalance” and could not cure him.

Danley, who is Catholic, told investigators that Paddock often told her, “Your God doesn’t love me.”

A Reno car salesman told police that in the months before the shooting Paddock told him he was depressed and had relationship troubles. Paddock’s doctor offered him antidepressants, but told investigators that Paddock would only accept a prescription for anxiety medication.

Source

Wounded guard in Vegas shooting staying in hotel for free

Associated Press

By KEN RITTER, Associated Press

9 hrs ago

© The Associated Press FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017 file photo, personal belongings and debris litters the Route 91 Harvest festival grounds across the street from the Mandalay Bay resort and casino in Las Vegas. The upcoming Las Vegas…

LAS VEGAS — The corporate owner of the Las Vegas hotel where a gunman unleashed the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history is giving a free hotel room at one of its properties to a hotel security guard who is expected to be a key witness in lawsuits against the company, officials said Friday.

MGM Resorts International is concerned about the safety and well-being of Jesus Campos, 25, an employee on paid leave while he recovers from a leg wound received in a hotel hallway during the Oct. 1 massacre, company executive Alan Feldman said.

Fifty-eight people were killed at nearly 550 were injured when authorities say Stephen Paddock rained gunfire from the windows of a 32nd-floor hotel suite into a crowd of country music concertgoers.

A Houston-based lawyer suing MGM Resorts and other defendants on behalf of a California woman who was wounded in the shooting called the arrangement odd and said he believes the hotel company is trying to control Campos.

"I really think it's about not allowing reporters and lawyers and investigators to get to him," attorney Mo Aziz told The Associated Press. "I think they want to make sure he doesn't make any statement that could really become problematic. And the reason they put him up on their property is so that they'll know at all times where he is and who's talking with him."

Feldman said "a very unusual circumstance" arose when police and a union official identified Campos as a hero whose arrival in a hotel hallway unwittingly stopped the shooting.

"When his name became public, Jesus was inundated with media coming to his home," Feldman said. "Out of concern for our employee's well-being and privacy, we provided a room for him."

Campos' lawyer, Frank Flansburg III, said Campos and his family experienced "extensive and intrusive media attention."

Police said the wounded Campos remained at the Mandalay Bay in the immediate minutes after the shooting, and provided his account of what happened to investigators while he was being treated at a hospital.

Campos made no public appearances after his hospital release, and at the last minute canceled a scheduled live interview Oct. 5 with Fox TV's Sean Hannity and taped interviews with other networks.

The following week, Campos and Stephen Schuck, a hotel engineer who escaped injury when bullets whizzed down the hallway, taped an interview with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. It aired Oct. 11.

Flansburg, who said Campos is not agreeing to more interviews, confirmed that the weekend after the shooting, Campos traveled on a pre-planned trip to visit family members in Mexico.

Campos is a U.S. citizen who was born in the Southern California town of Paramount, his lawyer said.

MGM Resorts has 11 hotel properties in the Las Vegas area. Flansburg declined to say where Campos has been staying.

He said Campos "accepted and appreciated" the MGM Resorts offer of lodging for his "privacy and protection."

Source

Foreign Affairs Mag Advances Domestic Terrorism To Remove Alternative Media

by Tyler Durden

Oct 8, 2017 10:21 AM


Submitted by Mike Miles, journalist, writer and book author

Foreign Affairs Magazine Advances Domestic Terrorism To Remove Alternative Media

Is Foreign Affairs magazine advancing “domestic terrorism” because it could help remove alternative media, and even jail editors and writers or worse. The recent article is entitled “Should We Treat Domestic Terrorists the Way We Treat ISIS? What Works—and What Doesn't.” It begins as follows:

The mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday night has again raised fears about terrorism. There’s much we don’t yet know. The Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed the attack, but the FBI claims that there is no international terrorism link. The attacker, Stephen Paddock, was 64 years old and white, fitting a stereotype of a right-wing terrorist more than a jihadist one. And he may just be a crazy nut. But regardless of Paddock’s particular pathology, the situation highlights how the United States treats similar forms of violence differently depending on the nature of the perpetrator. 

Many commentators have already demanded that we make a case for domestic terrorism including such prominent Youtubers as Philip DeFranco. He runs a website of some six million and offers mildly libertarian commentary. But perhaps he doesn’t understand that he may eventually become a victim of what he wants to invoke. There are many such well-meaning people who quite possibly misunderstand what is happening

How about PropOrNot? This outfit lists around websites “friendly” to Russia and in total includes many of the major alternative websites in the country. Those who run the website say they believe these sites provide propaganda for Russia.

A recent reading of PropOrNot seems to reveal that the site may have reduced some of the finger-pointing. It says that it does not “censor.” However it continues to list websites nonetheless. The Washington Post drew information from PropOrNot long ago when it was trying to paint alternative websites as Russian sympathizers.

2 Las Vegas cops, one civilian killed in ambush; 2 suspects also dead

Las Vegas police officers race to the scene of a shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday. (Eric Verduzco / AP)

JOHN M. GLIONNA, MATT PEARCE

contact the reporters

CrimeShootingsLaw EnforcementArmed ConflictsNewspaper and Magazine

Two Las Vegas officers ambushed, killed at lunch
Las Vegas police: 'This is a revolution,' shooters said during attack on officers

As many as five people were dead Sunday afternoon after police said a pair of people shot two police officers at a Las Vegas pizzeria and then stormed a nearby Wal-Mart, where they killed another victim in the store, then themselves.

“This is a revolution,” the suspects said during the attack, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Sheriff Kevin C. McMahill told reporters.

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There were conflicting reports about the gender of the two suspects – whether it was a man and a woman or two men – but officials said the attack apparently began at Cici’s Pizza on North Nellis Boulevard.

Two people walked into the pizzeria and shot both police officers in the head before taking their guns and ammunition and heading for the Wal-Mart, McMahill said.

Alize Harper, 16, was selling newspapers outside the Wal-Mart when she saw a car drive up, and a man start yelling for everyone to get out and warning that the police were coming.

Monse Galindo, 19, a customer in the store, was near the registers when she saw a tall, thin, middle-aged white man in military-style clothing walk in with a small gun in his hand.

@derekgrrrrr What exactly is hypocritical about your NRA statement? I don't think it means what you think it means. Coincidence is a better word here.

DDOG83229
AT 4:38 PM JUNE 08, 2014


“He came in, shouting, ‘The revolution is about to start,’ something about a war, and that the cops were on their way,” Galindo told the Los Angeles Times, adding that the man then fired one shot in the air and another shot as he moved toward the left side of the store.

Galindo and Harper said the man appeared to be by himself, though police initially said there were two suspects in the store.

Karl Catarata, 16, was shopping with his mother and brother inside and also were near the registers when they heard the shouting, though the people shouting were just out of eyesight, he said.


“We thought they were shouting because there was a dispute, an argument,” Catarata said, but as he watched the body language of the Wal-Mart employees, who could see what was going on, he knew there was something seriously wrong.

After the first shot rang out, he grabbed his mother's and brother’s hands and began to run toward the back of the store. He heard three shots in all before he made it to the exit.

Jesus Bustamante, 27, was at the Wal-Mart with his cousin, Emmanuel Florez, 26, to buy an Xbox when the shooting began.

“Should we run?” Florez asked his cousin as the shots rang out, Bustamante said. “Hell yes, we should run!” Bustamante replied, and the pair joined the other shoppers and Wal-Mart employees flooding out the back of the store.

The attacker or attackers shot and killed one person inside before going to the back of the store and carrying out a “suicide pact” as police arrived, McMahill told reporters.

Outside, police were already swarming. Bustamante said he saw one motorcycle officer dump his motorcycle in his haste to get inside. One police officer got inside the store, then came back out to tell everyone outside to get away.

“If you know the cops are scared, then you know it’s dangerous,” Bustamante said.

Alize Harper, who had been selling newspapers, added: “You don’t think this kind of thing can happen. It’s a Sunday, you’re selling newspapers, and all of a sudden a man walks in and starts shooting up a Wal-Mart. What is going on here?”

Police were working quickly to get an answer after they gained control of the scene, and bused away witnesses for police interviews.

“We express our deepest condolences to everyone who have been affected by this senseless act of violence,” Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said in a statement. “Our store is currently closed. This is still an active investigation and we are working with local police.”

A man who described himself as the manager of the Wal-Mart, Jason, declined to speak with media as he gathered contact information for other people who were at the store.

A woman asked him if she should give him a call later Sunday evening, and he replied, “I don’t think I’m going to be going home tonight.”

Glionna reported from Las Vegas and Pearce from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Ryan Parker, in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.


Source: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-las-vegas-cops-killed-in-ambush-20140608-story.html
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JetBlue passengers describe pilot's mid-air 'breakdown'

Pilot Clayton Osbon, 49, had to be restrained on flight from Las Vegas after claiming there was a bomb on the plane


Staff and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 March 2012 11.41 EDT

JetBlue passengers claim pilot Clayton Osbon walked out of the cockpit and attempted to force his way into an occupied bathroom. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty

Passengers aboard a flight from New York to Las Vegas have described the moment when a pilot suffered an apparent breakdown which led to him being pinned to the floor while another pilot made an emergency landing.

Holidaymakers on the JetBlue flight on Tuesday realised something was wrong when the pilot, Clayton Osbon, 49, walked out of the cockpit and attempted to force his way into an occupied bathroom.

Osbon's colleagues tried to calm him down as he became more jittery, coaxing the pilot to the back of the plane while ensuring he did not get near the plane's controls. But he broke free and sprinted up the aisle, claiming there was a bomb. Passengers said Olson urged them to pray and shouted, "They're going to take us down."

"Nobody knew what to do because he is the captain of the plane," said Don Davis, who was aboard the plane at the time. "You're not just going to jump up and attack the captain."

Four men managed to restrain Osbon, using seatbelt extenders and zip-tie handcuffs to pin him to the floor for more than 20 minutes while the co-captain and an off-duty pilot landed the plane in Amarillo, Texas.

Tony Antolino, who sat in the 10th row and tackled Osbon when he attempted to re-enter the cockpit, said: "Clearly the pilot had an emotional or mental type of breakdown. He became almost delusional."

Fellow passenger Josh Redick said Osbon seemed "irate" and was "spouting off about Afghanistan and souls and al-Qaida".

The chief executive of JetBlue, Dave Barger, told NBC Osbon was a "consummate professional" he had known for years. There was nothing in the pilot's record to indicate he would be a risk, Barger added.

The airline described the incident as a "medical situation involving the captain of JetBlue airways flight 191 from New York's John F Kennedy airport". The pilot was later taken to a hospital, it added.

Gabriel Schonzeit, who was sitting in the third row, said the pilot had said there could be a bomb on board the flight. "He started screaming about al-Qaida and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and about how we were all going down," he told Amarillo Globe-News. "A group of us … grabbed him and put him to the ground."

An off-duty airline captain who was on the plane entered the flight deck and took over the duties of the ill captain before landing in Amarillo, the airline said.

Airline authorities and police officers interviewed passengers on arrival. Grant Heppes, who was on the flight, said: "I had no idea [Olson] was an employee … I just assumed he was a passenger who flipped out."

An FBI spokeswoman, Lydia Maese, said it was co-ordinating an investigation with airport police, Amarillo police, the FAA and the Transportation Safety Administration. She declined to comment on any arrests.

John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, said such incidents were rare. He recalled two or three similar examples in some 40 years.

Airlines and the FAA encouraged pilots to assert themselves if they thought flight safety was at risk, even if it meant contradicting the captain's orders, Cox said.

All pilots working for scheduled airlines must have a first-class medical certificate, which must be renewed by the FAA every six months to a year, depending on the pilot's age. To receive the certificate, pilots must be examined by an FAA-designated doctor, who asks questions about the interviewee's psychological condition. Pilots are required to disclose any ailments and list any medication they may be taking.

The incident aboard the JetBlue flight comes weeks after an American Airlines flight attendant was removed from a plane after making references to 9/11 and voicing concerns that the plane would crash.

In 2008, an Air Canada co-pilot was removed from flight from Toronto to London then later restrained and sedated after having a mental breakdown.


Source

Census Bureau At Odds With Politician Over Vegas Trip

Politics

Published September 21, 2010
| FoxNews.com

The U.S. Census Bureau is facing criticism for sending 140 managers to Las Vegas last month for a business trip that cost taxpayers nearly $100,000.

The agency told FoxNews.com that the meetings on "lessons learned" from the 2010 census are required by Congress to identify operation improvements and cost efficiencies for the national head count that happens every 10 years.

But a Republican lawmaker accused the agency of stealing taxpayer money to bankroll a lavish vacation for its top employees.

"It's impossible to argue this without saying these folks took a vacation and they took it at taxpayer expense," Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado told CBS4 Denver, a local affiliate that first reported the trip. "I mean, I think it's the equivalent of theft."

The Census Bureau defended the trip.

"We returned $1.6 billion to the taxpayers in part because we do the 'lessons learned' process before and after our operations," bureau spokesman Steve Jost told FoxNews.com, referring to the $1.6 billion the agency says it saved nationwide over the course of the 2010 census – a figure questioned by Republicans who claim the census actually exceeded its budget.

Jost said the trip to Sin City Aug. 24 cost $88,767 in airfare, meals and hotel costs – or $634 per person -- a price that would have been "substantially higher" anywhere else in the region. The bureau sent managers from 10 different states in the region to review the training process, as well as detail the agency's good and bad practices. The trip lasted a day and a half, Jost said.

"We believe this is a good investment in the next census to figure out how we can do this more efficiently," he said. "I don't know if we'd be having this conversation if we had it in Denver or Albuquerque."

Coffman told CBS4Denver that if the agency was serious about saving taxpayer money, it could have gathered the same data by conducting online and written surveys, or via teleconference.

"The congressman stands by his comment," spokesman Nathaniel Sillin told FoxNews.com. "The burden is on the Census Bureau to show that this trip was of value to the taxpayers in a time of economic austerity."

The agency said it did conduct online and written surveys and that the Vegas trip was the culmination of the process.

"At some point, face-to-face meetings are logical and necessary," he said. "Managers have to get together and compare notes on what worked and what didn't work."

The controversy comes after President Obama encouraged Americans to visit Vegas following a wave of criticism over his remarks that corporations shouldn't use federal bailout money for trips to Sin City.

Jost said he was unaware of the controversy involving Obama and that the business trip to Vegas had nothing to do with that.

Source

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Guns in Pentagon, Vegas attacks came from Memphis PD

Monday, March 15, 2010
Guns in Pentagon, Vegas attacks came from Memphis PD

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The AP reports that guns used in a shooting at the Las Vegas federal courthouse and a Pentagon transit stop had been in the custody of Memphis police, who had seized them during arrests. While some departments destroy seized weapons, Memphis is one that will trade them to get better weapons or other equipment.

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Posted by James Hart on Monday, March 15, 2010 at 06:15 AM

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Source:http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2010/03/guns-in-pentagon-vegas-attacks-came-from-memphis-pd.html

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