Stephen Paddock Essay

On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman rained fire down on a crowd of concert goers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, leaving 58 people dead and 546 injured. There are three key points of interest and discussion about this tragic event that have stuck out to the American and global publics as well as to journalists, politicians and social critics around the world. These are, who was the assailant and why did he do what he did, how did this incident affect people in America and affect America as a whole and
Between 10:05 and 10:15 p.m. PDT (pacific daylight time) 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, fired hundreds of rifle rounds from his suite on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay

The incident passed the Orlando nightclub shooting of 2016 as the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in United States history. One of the three key points of discussion and interest surrounding the shooting was, who was Stephen Paddock and why did he do what he did. So then who was Stephen Paddock. Paddock was born on April 9th 1953 in Clinton, Iowa. He grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and Sun Valley, California, as the eldest of four sons of Benjamin Hoskins Paddock and Dolores Irene Hudson. According to his brother Eric, they never really knew their father as he was never with their mother or them. This was because his father Benjamin was a bank robber who was arrested in 1960 when Stephen was just seven years old. Benjamin was later convicted and escaped prison in 1969. After escaping he still never contacted young Stephen and the rest of his family. In 1971 Stephen graduated from John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, and then from California State University in 1977, with a degree in business administration. Paddock worked for the

Stephen Paddocks brother Eric and many neighbours and acquaintances described him as unfriendly, rude and as a loner. All traits that are very common in sociopaths, mass murderers and serial killers. Stephen was also a very prominent gambler who lost thousands of American dollars daily whilst he was gambling. A string of small loses over the years or just one major loss whilst gambling could have helped to lead Stephen down the dark path to committing a mass shooting. Another major reason why Stephen Paddock may have committed this horrible act is because of his father. Benjamin Hoskins Paddock who as mentioned before, was a bank robber and con man who escaped from United States federal prison in 1969 and was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for nearly a decade. The FBI described his father as a man who “had been diagnosed as being psychopathic, with possible suicidal tendencies.” If this report by the FBI is to be believed then Stephen Paddocks father could have passed down to him his psychopathy, suicidal tendencies and criminal behaviours which then led Stephen to complete this absolutely disgusting atrocity. This idea that Stephen Paddocks father passed down psychopathic genes and criminal behaviours is further