OfficerBlueChandler, AZ – A man who sold ammo to Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was identified as a person of interest last week in the mass-shooting, and has now been arrested.
Douglas Haig sold 720 rounds of tracer ammunition to Paddock, but pointed out at a press conference that tracer ammo didn’t appear to have been used in the shooting.
“You would have seen red streaks coming from the window,” Haig said at a press conference, according to Las Vegas Journal Review.
Haig said that he legally sold the ammunition and nothing seemed off about Paddock when he came to Haig’s house to buy the ammunition.
“He pulled up, very well-dressed, very well-groomed, very polite, very respectful, told me what he wanted,” Haig said, according to Las Vegas Journal Review. “I gathered it up, put it in a box, told him what he owed me. He paid me, put it in his car and drove away. At no time did I see anything suspicious or odd or any kind of tell, anything that would set off an alarm.”
“I had no contribution to what Paddock did. I had no way to see into his mind. The product that I sold him had absolutely nothing to do with what he did. I’m a vendor, a merchant whose name was released,” he said.
Public attention focused on Haig after Clark County District Judge Elissa Cadish released 300 pages of warrant records and they mistakenly forgot to redact Haig’s name from a document which said, “Until the investigation can rule otherwise, Marilou Danley and Douglas Haig have become persons of interest who may have conspired with Stephen Paddock to commit Murder with a Deadly Weapon.”
Reporters then identified Haig, a 55-year-old aerospace engineer who has sold ammunition as a hobby for 25 years.
Paddock wounded more than 500 other concertgoers when he opened fire on the crowd of over 22,000 people from his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
It was the largest mass shooting in recent American history, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Eighteen people died from at least one gunshot wound to the head, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Twenty one victims died from at least one gunshot wound to the chest, and fifteen people died from at least one gunshot wound to the back.
Three of the victims died from a gunshot wound to the neck, and one died from a gunshot wound to the leg.
At least six of the victims were hit multiple times, USA Today reported.
Haig’s attorney told the press on Wednesday that he didn’t expect there to be any charges filed against his client.
“It seems to me if he was still a person of interest, we would know that by now,” attorney Marc J. Victor said, according to Las Vegas Journal Review. “This is old news to us. We’ve been dealing with this for several months. He’s been an open book.”
He was wrong.
Associated Press reports that on Friday, Haig was charged with manufacturing armor-piercing ammunition after his fingerprints were identified on unfired ammunition that was found in Paddock’s hotel room.
“I think they were hoping to find somebody who was in collusion with him. And my name was on a box in his room and they were hoping I was tied into it,” Haig said at a Friday press conference.
Blue Lives Matter is now on LinkedIn. If you have a LinkedIn account, be sure to follow us there.