Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock’s brother allegedly threatened to kill his friend, sold meth: court papers
Las Vegas killer Stephen Paddock’s unbalanced brother allegedly once threatened to kill a friend in California, court records show.
Bruce Paddock was living without permission in a San Fernando Valley home in 2014 when his friend Hector Cruz, the owner, accused him of tampering with machinery, the records filed in Los Angeles show.
When Cruz confronted him, Paddock allegedly said, “If you keep f------ with me, I am going to kill you and drop you in the desert.”
The 57-year-old Paddock also told Cruz, “Hit me like a man,” and punched his antagonist in one arm.
Cruz said he got the menacing message.
“I am extremely afraid of Paddock, who has intimidated me by his violent character and destruction of my business office and my service bay,” he said in court papers, according to the website.
Stephen Paddock, 64, built a sniper’s nest in a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas strip Sunday night and rained bullets on more than 22,000 people at an outdoor country music concert.
(JOHN RAOUX/AP)
Cruz told the Daily News and said in court papers that Paddock liked to get high and sold methamphetamine and marijuana. His behavior is “extremely erratic and unpredictable,” Cruz claimed.
He also told The News that Bruce Paddock was filled with paranoia and installed hidden cameras in the house and work area, as well as in his car.
“He said he had stuff to make explosives,” Cruz said. “He’s just a crazy guy. He was getting money from his mother and leaching off the government. He was extremely intelligent, but he was just trash.”
In a chilling coincidence, Stephen Paddock possessed explosives in his house and car. He also installed hidden cameras in the hallway and the hotel room he used as a sniper’s nest Sunday in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
Cruz said he knew of Stephen Paddock but said he never met him. The brothers’ father was a bank robber who made the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list in the 1960s.
A judge gave Cruz a temporary restraining order against Bruce Paddock, but later found there was not sufficient evidence to make the order permanent.
“After I got the TRO, he drove by several times to keep intimidating me, and then I never saw him again,” Cruz said.
Stephen Paddock, 64, shot from his room on the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas strip Sunday night, raining bullets on more than 22,000 people at an outdoor country music concert.
He used high-capacity magazines and bump-fire devices, which convert semi-automatic rifles to near fully automatic rifles.
Fifty-eight people died. Just under 500 people were injured — either shot, trampled or hit by shrapnel.
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