Do you believe the gunman behind the mass shooting in Las Vegas acted alone? Or was he merely a fall guy behind a more complex and sinister killing assault?
Was there another shooter, or two, in that 32nd-floor hotel room? Were other shots fired from the hotel’s fourth floor? Or do you wonder if the Oct. 1 shooting was a “false flag” attack from the “deep state” to mark the 100-year anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution?
Conspiracy theories abound about what truly happened that night, marking the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. And readers of this column didn’t hesitate to contact me with their armchair theories behind the horrific yet mysterious attack.
“It just doesn’t add up,” said Adam Thoreson, of Crown Point, who left me a voicemail one day after the shooting.
“If the shooter was addicted to video poker, perhaps he thought he could punish Vegas and keep tourists away from gambling,” added Victor G., another reader.
Echoing what other readers told me, Thoreson rattled off several questions about the attack, including one that most of us have asked ourselves: Why would a 64-year-old wealthy and retired accountant do such a thing?
“We need a motive,” wrote Tom P., another reader.
Yes, we do. However, the same can’t always be said for people with mental illness who commit despicable acts. And trying to understand such madness is like trying to understand the need for a fish to ride a bicycle. Not everything in life adds up.
Still, such murderous mysteries not only confound us, they also trigger something in us to question the facts. And also to suspect something more complex than just one human being losing his mind and committing such a heinous act.
Conspiracy theories date back centuries. They are as much a part of our collective DNA as fearing the unknown or trying to understand what’s not totally understandable. It’s a search in the dark for a pebble of truth in a turbulent sea of lies, rumors, whispers and exaggerations.
More than a half century after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, a sizable group of Americans continue to question the facts behind the Nov. 22, 1963, shooting in Dallas. Later this month, sealed documents related to the case will be released by the National Archives, if President Donald Trump doesn’t block it.
Even a former state governor and professional wrestler, Jesse Ventura from Minnesota, authored a book, “They Killed Our President,” alleging that the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy in reaction to his efforts to reduce war.
Will the details within those dusty JFK documents finally put to rest the hundreds of conspiracy theories about that assassination? Of course not. Facts have always been questioned, distorted or flat out ignored by conspiracy theorists.
This has held true for numerous fatal incidents in my lifetime, dating back to the mysterious disappearance in 1975 of Jimmy Hoffa, the former vice president of the Teamsters Union. It remains one of the most popular unsolved mysteries in our country, prompting truckloads of conspiracy theories about what happened.
I believe the mob knocked off the union honcho and buried his body somewhere in New Jersey. Does that make me a conspiracy theory nut? I don’t think so. It’s just my opinion and it offers a plausible answer. Nothing more.
This contrasts with other Americans’ wildly imaginative theories about deadly incidents since then, including the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. To this day, there are people who still question that those attacks were perpetrated solely by foreign-born terrorists. Instead, some people suspect that our government was behind those attacks to justify declaring a lucrative war in the gasoline-rich Middle East.
More recently, conspiracy theorists have questioned the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn., claiming it was all a hoax. Yes, a hoax. Sounds absurd, right?
Just last year, an internet-spread fictitious conspiracy theory dubbed “PizzaGate” alleged that Hillary Clinton and other high-ranking Democrats were involved in a child sex trafficking ring. This prompted one believer, Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of North Carolina, to “self-investigate” the theory by threatening employees of a Washington, D.C., pizza place with a loaded rifle in tow.
Fast forward to today, in the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting, which has brought out just about every conspiracy theorist from the dark reaches of the internet. I’ve heard from many of them who live in Northwest Indiana, including several readers who can’t resist jumping into the fray about this case.
Police have publicly admitted they have no clue why the gunman committed such an act. But police insist the shooter acted alone.
“I want to emphasize that (the gunman) is solely responsible for this heinous act,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Undersheriff Kevin McMahill told media. “We are aware of the rumors outside of the media and also on social media that there was more than one assailant.”
Yet it hasn’t stopped armchair detectives and suspicious theorists to insist they have all the answers. One internet webpage I stumbled on shows an alleged police photo of the deceased gunman after he took his own life before police stormed his hotel room.
His head is in a pool of blood but at least two bullet casings rest atop the blood without a splattering of any kind on them. This has led theorists to insist that the gunman was killed by someone else but made to look like it was a suicide.
“Why are there clean shell casings on top of the blood puddle?” asks one reader.
“And why is his handgun so far away from his body?” asked another reader.
Such pointed questions are all it takes to plant the seed of doubt or suspicion in our otherwise stable minds. Hmmm, we ask ourselves. It’s another reminder that wild speculation is much more interesting than the somber truth.
jdavich@post-tribcom
Twitter@jdavich
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