The Arizona ammunition maker embroiled in the Las Vegas massacre claims he sold the gunman hundreds of bullets without a clue he planned to fire into a crowd, killing 58 people.
“He said he was going to go put on a light show,” Haig told CBS News. “And I can’t remember whether he said for or with his friends, but that’s what he did say.”
The rounds were tracer bullets, which basically leave a trail of light when they’re fired.
Gunman Stephen Paddock bought 720 rounds from the ammunition business Haig runs on the side out of Mesa, Ariz., he told the network. But there weren’t any warning signs.
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“I couldn’t detect anything wrong with this guy,” Haig told CBS News. “He told me exactly what he wanted. I handed him a box with the ammunition in it, and he paid me and he left.”
He rained bullets down on the Route 91 Harvest festival from his Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino hotel room, sparking chaos as he also wounded hundreds of concertgoers.
Haig told CBS News he hardly spoke to Paddock, and couldn’t detect anything wrong.
(CBS News)
Paddock had 1,000 tracer rounds in his weapons cache, officials said in the days after the shooting, but later indicated he didn’t use them in the melee.
A source told CNN in late October that Paddock tried buying tracers at a Phoenix gun show ahead of the shooting, but the vendor was out of stock.
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Haig was named in the Las Vegas police report as a person of interest who authorities though may have conspired with Paddock.
The gunman fatally shot himself not long after unleashing mayhem on the crowd.
Haig was just one of two named persons of interest in hundreds of pages of police reports released Tuesday. The other was Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, who authorities indicated won’t be charged in the case.
Paddock rained a fury of bullets on the Route 91 Harvet festival.
(John Locher/AP)
It remains unclear if investigators are still looking into Haig.
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He told Newsweek in October that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives came to speak with him not long after the shooting.
“They asked me a bunch of questions,” Haig told the magazine in an interview that wasn’t published until Tuesday. “And after about 20 minutes they left. Haven’t heard from them since.”
His day job is as a senior engineer for Honeywell Aerospace, according to his LinkedIn page, where he’s worked since July 2015.
He did two stints at Boeing, from 1991 to 2004 and from 2010 to 2013, where he worked as an engineer on defense and aerospace projects.
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Paddock, who shot himself after unleashing carnage, bought more than 700 bullets from Haig, the ammo dealer said.
(AP)
Haig also worked at Northrop Grumman from 2004 to 2010, specializing in military platforms and technology, his LinkedIn indicates.
For years he also ran Specialized Military Ammunition, which started in 1991. The company sold tracer and incendiary rounds — ones that blow up on impact — for a range of sizes, according to its website.
Haig told CBS News he had nothing to do with the shooting, and previously indicated to Newsweek that the transaction with Paddock happened two years ago.
“I felt that they were hoping that they could find a connection between myself and Paddock, that would go back showing that I supplied him with most of his ammunition, possibly even some firearms,” he told the network.
“They’re not gonna find it. I talked to the guy three times.”
Haig continued that he doesn’t think he’s responsible for the shooting, he told CBS News. But within a few weeks of the massacre he decided to deactivate the website for his firm, which records indicate was based out of a Mesa home.
“I’m still racking my brain for what did I miss,” he told CBS News. “Why didn’t I pick this up?”
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