LAS VEGAS (AP) — They came quietly, in a steady stream looking for purses, wallets and cellphones. One person searched for a treasured wedding bracelet.
After the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, concertgoers and family members of those who attended a country music festival that ended in death for dozens of people sought Monday to recover belongings left behind in panic.
Lawn chairs, baby strollers, cowboy hats, boots and thousands of other items were discarded as 22,000 people fled the concert venue while bullets flew from the Mandalay Bay hotel casino across Las Vegas Boulevard.
FBI investigators spent a week combing the crime scene, carefully cataloguing evidence and separating personal items before transporting them to an assistance center set up at the convention center.
“I can just tell you from taking a look at it, it’s just thousands and thousands of items, many, many truckloads that have been picked up,” Clark County Emergency Manager John Steinbeck said. “More than I would have ever expected.”