Stephen Paddock’s autopsy report could be released
LAS VEGAS: Clark County Nevada District Court Judge Jim Crockett ruled on Sept. 28 that the coroner’s office cannot keep death records secret, because nothing in Nevada law exempts autopsies from public review.
That decision came about prior to the Oct. 1 Las Vegas massacre that left 58 people dead and over 500 injured after Stephen Paddock reportedly opened fire on a music festival from his suite at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
We still do not know the manner and cause of Paddock’s death. That has not been released by the coroner’s office and neither has the estimated time of death.
Release the records
The Las Vegas Review-Journal had filed a lawsuit in July after the Clark County Coroner’s Office refused to release coroner’s reports in other deaths.
The coroner considers the coroner autopsy report, coroner medical examination report, toxicology report and the coroner investigation report, to be confidential and not for public record.
Attorneys for the LVRJ argued that Nevada’s Public Records Act requires that the government must release the documents.
The Clark County District Attorney’s Office who represented the coroner argued that the records could be withheld and or redacted by officials based on a 1982 attorney general’s decision.
After the judge’s ruling, Keith Moyer, the editor in chief of the LVRJ said, “Thursday’s ruling makes it clear again that government records are presumed to be open and cannot be hidden from scrutiny because bureaucrats want the public kept in the dark. Governments must follow the law. The Review-Journal will aggressively litigate baseless refusals to release public records. And, as we did Thursday, we’ll win.”
Crockett said the attorney general’s opinion does not overrule laws that say all records are public unless there is a specific exemption.
Clark County will appeal
On Tuesday the Clark County Commission voted to appeal Crocket’s decision. Clark County Coroner, John Fudenberg requested the appeal.
The LVRJ managing editor Glenn Cook said, “Autopsy reports are public records across the country to ensure accountability in investigations.”
Local and national media file petitions
On Nov. 2 petitions for release of records pertaining to Stephen Paddock and the October 1 massacre were filed in US District Court, District of Nevada and Clark County District Court by attorneys representing the Las Vegas-Review Journal, ABC, CNN, KSNV-TV Las Vegas, The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Associated Press.
The US District Court petition is to unseal all the federal affidavit for search warrant applications and associated judicial records. An affidavit for search warrant contains the probable cause necessary for a federal judge to issue any search warrant.
A Clark County District Court petition requested the unsealing of 14 affidavit for search warrants and transcripts of oral statements of probable cause.
A second CCDC petition requests the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department allow the inspection of all recordings made by police-worn body cameras on the night of October 1, 2017, recordings of 911 calls received relating to the shooting incident at the Mandalay Bay, police dispatch calls, evidence logs, hotel surveillance video, interview reports and anything else relating to the shooting investigation.
Never forget those killed and injured in the worst mass shooting in US history that occurred in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 1, 2017. It should never have happened.
Doug authored over 135 articles on the October 1, 2017 Las Vegas Massacre, more than any other single journalist in the country. He investigates stories on corruption, law enforcement and crime. Doug is a US Army Military Police Veteran, former police officer, deputy sheriff and criminal investigator. Doug spent 20 years in the hotel/casino industry as an investigator and then as Director of Security and Surveillance. He also spent a short time with the US Dept. of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration. In 1986 Doug was awarded Criminal Investigator of the Year by the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia for his undercover work in narcotics enforcement. In 1992 and 1993 Doug testified in court that a sheriff’s office official and the county prosecutor withheld exculpatory evidence during the 1988 trial of a man accused of the attempted murder of his wife. Doug’s testimony led to a judge’s decision to order the release of the man from prison in 1992 and awarded him a new trial, in which he was later acquitted. As a result of Doug breaking the police “blue wall of silence,” he was fired by the county sheriff. His story was featured on Inside Edition, Current Affair and CBS News’ “Street Stories with Ed Bradley”. In 1992 after losing his job, at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Doug infiltrated a group of men who were plotting the kidnapping of a Dupont fortune heir and his wife. Doug has been a guest on national television and radio programs speaking on the stories he now writes as an investigative journalist. Catch Doug’s Podcast: @dougpoppa1
Stephen Paddock was a patsy. This so-called “shooting” was a false flag operation. DON’T IGNORE THE FACTS.
Doug, I do not believe the autopsy report will resolve any issues, conflict in any way with the current meme, and will be highly redacted if ever released.
I have looked at the crime scene photos that were published and readily state they are grainy and of limited usefulness. But clearly you can see that Paddocks left eye is open and his right eye is closed. If you look closely at Paddocks right eye, in the upper corner, close to the bridge of his nose and just about where it meets his forehead, there is a dark black spot. It appears to be a possible bullet hole.
If you look at the blood pattern on his face, there is a about a one inch thick stream of blood that appears to flow from that hole, across the rest of his forehead toward the top of his head and down the back of his head onto the floor. Also, there blood inside his mouth and nose that appears to have drained out of his nose, onto his upper cheek bones and downward toward the back of his head onto the floor.
The blood pattern visible in the photo is not consistent with someone placing a snub nose revolver in their mouth and shooting themselves in a suicide. The exit wound would either be in the back of the throat and out the neck region or somewhere in the upper rear/crown of the skull. None of those exit wounds would result in blood on the face of the victim, especially when we see they fell down and landed on their back. Blood flows downward with gravity, not up.
The hole I believe I see could not be an exit wound. In order for it to be so Paddock would have had to hold the gun inside his mouth, upward, at almost a 90* angle. You dont get exit wounds in the front of the face from a suicide where a gun was placed in the mouth.
The final location of the gun on the floor, appx. two feet above Paddocks head, does not make sense either. If he shot himself, the gun would have fell immediately forward or dropped to his shooting hand side, next to him. Not above and behind him.
I doubt we will make any progress based on info released by LVMPD, therefore, based on their secrecy and silence, were are forced and justified in asking our own questions and making our own conclusions despite them. Thank goodness for citizens that have provided information to each other because 99% of the media is useless and helping the cover up.
Probably too late for you to see or reply to this now but, since you’re about the only person I’ve seen even attempt to explain a possible cause of death so far, how do you explain the blood on his chest in the same photo?
In my opinion, the reason they haven’t officially released the cause of death is because of this little detail. If he was alone in the room and shot himself in the head there wouldn’t be blood low on his chest with no trail connecting the chest blood to the head/face blood. Based on the photograph, the only plausible (although highly unlikely) suicide explanation is that he shot himself in the chest and the blood on his face and in his mouth came from the lungs due to this chest wound. In reality, it appears to me that he was shot in the chest and then the face which would indicate murder and not suicide, hence the extremely delayed details on COD.
I agree strongly, although the sequence of shots is and who fired at him is still an uncertainty. But if you look close at the chest, follow the buttons down his shirt, the center of the stain on his chest appears dark, like a burn hole. You can not make out the button… perhaps he was shot twice. In the face and chest.. Depending on what kind of rounds were fired and how quickly he expired, his heart may not have pumped a lot of blood after he was shot. And again, we can not see the pooling of blood under his body to estimate how much blood may have bled out. Also, if you look at the tip of his right shoe, it looks like it is stained.
Would you mind if I repost your assessment on Reddit?
sure, go ahead.