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| And now, officials from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives update on the Tesla cyber truck explosion, which happened outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. | ||
| This is about 25 minutes. | ||
| All right, good afternoon, everybody. | ||
| My name is Kevin McMahon. | ||
| I'm the sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and we are collectively here this morning to give you an update on the cyber truck explosion at the Trump Hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard yesterday. | ||
| Our work never stopped as many of you went to sleep last night. | ||
| And I just want to give you an update on a lot of what it is that we found through the processing of the cyber truck. | ||
| This is a joint investigation involving the FBI, the ATF, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and these folks worked through the night and found a lot of stuff that is very useful for this investigation. | ||
| As you look at this cyber truck here, we had to transport this down to our fleet services so that we could really get through this thing. | ||
| I remind you that the subject inside wasn't able to be removed for a very long period of time because he was burnt beyond recognition. | ||
| And so, as we continue to move through this, I'm going to talk a little bit about his identity and what we believe, but I would like to highlight a couple of things that the teams found inside of the cyber truck that are useful to the investigation. | ||
| And that first and foremost is a military identification. | ||
| We also found a passport. | ||
| We found a Desert Eagle 50 caliber semi-automatic pistol. | ||
| And if you'll notice, on a lot of these guns that we're going to talk about here, they're almost just burnt beyond recognition as well. | ||
| There's a SLR Model B30 semi-automatic firearm, a number of fireworks that were still in the vehicle that had to be removed. | ||
| Notably, we found an iPhone and a smartwatch, and then several credit cards were also in the name of our subject. | ||
| Our subject is 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger. | ||
| He's of Colorado Springs, Colorado, born July 22nd, 1987. | ||
| Now, as you'll see here on a picture of his driver's license, let's see, the question really still remains for me, and I know that there's a lot of you folks in the media that are identifying this person as the person in our vehicle. | ||
| As I mentioned to you already, his body is burnt beyond recognition, and I do still not have confirmation 100% that that is the individual that was inside of our vehicle. | ||
| And so, as I'm calling it now the subject or person of interest, I will not come back until I have the confirmation through DNA or medical records that this is indeed, in fact, the subject inside of the vehicle. | ||
| Now, further complicating this identification of this individual, we also discovered through the coroner's office that the individual had sustained a gunshot wound to the head prior to the detonation of the vehicle. | ||
| One of the handguns was found at his feet inside of the vehicle. | ||
| Obviously, in how we're trying to identify him, and I'm feeling comfortable to give you this information, is a tremendous amount of substantial evidence to include he rented the Touro vehicle. | ||
| There are two tattoos, one of which was on the stomach and one of which is on the arm. | ||
| That we can see bits and pieces of it as in comparison to what it is that we now know he had on his body that has given us a lot of confidence that this is in fact the same person, as well as which the clearly obvious, which is the credit cards, the military identification, the passport. | ||
| And then, furthermore, as you'll see here in just a very short period of time, we tracked his movements from Colorado to Las Vegas. | ||
| And in a number of the photographs that we were able to determine, he was the individual that was driving the vehicle. | ||
| And also, I'd like to iterate this point to you. | ||
| We still have only ever seen him in this vehicle, and we're not aware of any other subjects involved in this particular case. | ||
| Now, I would like to acknowledge a couple of things because I know what's going on in the social media world, and there are a number of things in this case that are similar to the attack in New Orleans. | ||
| We do know that our subject here served in the military. | ||
| In fact, he's a current member of the military. | ||
| Both of the subjects served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. | ||
| What we do know about that is it's a very large military base, and we have no record that they served in the same unit or even at the same years at Fort Bragg, something that continues to remain under investigation. | ||
| I also know that they both served in Afghanistan in 2009. | ||
| We don't have any evidence that they were in the same province in Afghanistan, the same location, or the same unit. | ||
| Again, something else that remains under investigation. | ||
| And we also know, of course, that they both used the rental company Touro to rent their vehicles. | ||
| As far as his military background, it's been confirmed by DOD that he was indeed in the United States Army. | ||
| He was also a Green Beret operations sergeant who spent most of his time at Fort Carson, Colorado, and in Germany. | ||
| He was on approved leave from Germany, where he was serving with the 10th Special Forces Group. | ||
| He was also previously in the National Guard and the Army Reserve. | ||
| I'd like to point out to you that through exceptional joint investigative effort, we've gotten to a place where we believe we can show you his route to Las Vegas from Colorado. | ||
| Carlos will put up the map there for you. | ||
| And we know that he rented the cyber truck in Denver on December 28th. | ||
| We tracked his movements through the Tesla charging stations to Monument, Colorado on December 30th. | ||
| On the 31st of December, the truck was charged in Trinidad, Colorado, Las Vegas, New Mexico, and Albuquerque and Gallup, New Mexico. | ||
| On January 1st, the truck was charged in Holbrook, Flagstaff, and Kingman, Arizona. | ||
| We last tracked the truck in Kingman at 0533 yesterday morning. | ||
| The truck was first spotted in Las Vegas at 7.29 a.m. yesterday. | ||
| And Carlos will pull up a picture of the truck pulling onto Fashion Show Drive here. | ||
| And that picture was observed at about 7:34 a.m. | ||
| We know that he pulled into the Trump Valet. | ||
| I believe we have a video of that. | ||
| You can see the cyber truck highlighted there. | ||
| So through extensive surveillance video we were able to track him leaving there and we know that he went um to several different places along Las Vegas Boulevard and he spent some time in a parking lot of a business near Flamingo and Las Vegas | ||
| Boulevard. | ||
| We then have a video of the truck pulling back onto Las Vegas Boulevard from the Sands. | ||
| You see that there? | ||
| That's north on the Boulevard from Sands at 839, where he then immediately heads to the Trump Hotel, pulls into the Valet area, and as, of course, you all know. | ||
| the explosion occurs within 17 seconds of his arrival at the valet. | ||
| There's some additional investigative updates that are going to be provided to you by a couple of the other speakers here, the first of which will be our special agent in charge of the FBI local office, Spencer Evans. | ||
| Spencer? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| My name is Spencer Evans. | ||
| I'm the special agent in charge of the FBI's Las Vegas division. | ||
| As the sheriff mentioned, we've been working through the night with our partners, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and other agencies, to gather all the facts and determine a motive to what was initially reported to the FBI as a bombing incident, to which our Special Agent Bomtex and others responded. | ||
| Obviously, we're always concerned in these sorts of events to ascertain what the motive is. | ||
| We understand that's everybody's at the forefront of everyone's thoughts. | ||
| And so, looking into exactly what the motivation is remains our number one priority. | ||
| This is why the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force has been brought into play. | ||
| The Joint Terrorism Task Force, most important part of that acronym, is JOINT. | ||
| It is done in concert with our partners, which are comprised of more than a dozen investigative agencies here throughout the state of Nevada. | ||
| We've been working hand in glove, side by side, tirelessly to determine whether there is any ongoing threat to the public, to identify the subject, to determine any potential connection to other events going on in the world, most notably in New Orleans, and then obviously to determine if there's anything else that we need to be tracking down. | ||
| At this time, as the sheriff's pointed out, we feel that the subject has been identified, although not conclusively, waiting for DNA evidence on that front. | ||
| However, we do feel like we have the subject identified, and at this time, there is no information about additional subjects that the FBI is tracking on. | ||
| Our resources, as I mentioned, that have been deployed in support of this event include Special Agent Bomtex, our evidence response team, which is processing crime scenes side by side with the forensics folks from Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, our investigators, our intelligence analysts, and then outside of the FBI Las Vegas field office. | ||
| We have investigative leads that are being conducted by FBI fuel offices both internationally and domestically as well. | ||
| As always, when the FBI is involved with any sort of case like this, we ask for help for the public, anyone with information related to this incident. | ||
| We encourage you to please call 1-800, call FBI, or you can submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov. | ||
| We've already received thousands of tips related to this incident. | ||
| The challenge that we face moving forward is to separate those that are pertinent and relevant and those that can be verified from those that have not. | ||
| For example, one of the tips that we received just today relates to information alluding to this subject's personal experiences related to his time and activity in the military. | ||
| Again, that's unverified and uncorroborated, but one of many tips and leads that we will be following up in the days that come. | ||
| If you have any additional information, again, encourage everyone, 1-800, call FBI or submit it online tips.fbi.gov. | ||
| We will tirelessly work to exhaust all investigative leads and conclusively determine what the nature of this particular incident was, what the motivation was, and to the extent possible, share all that information as we obtain it. | ||
| I'll now turn some time over to the assistant special agent in charge from the ATF, Kenny Cooper. | ||
| Good morning, everybody. | ||
| My name is Kenny Cooper. | ||
| I'm the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of ATF San Francisco Field Division. | ||
| ATF is bringing our expertise in post-blast investigations and our crime gun intelligence to specifically assist in this investigation. | ||
| I will tell you that our Special Agent Bomtechs are working with FBI and with Las Vegas Metro and sifting through that post-blast debris to find components and investigative leads that we'll derive from that evidence process. | ||
| We're too early into that investigation process to give any determination as far as how this device was initiated. | ||
| I will say that we do know that the components primarily consist of fireworks, mortars, aerial shells, and are all consumer fireworks. | ||
| Nothing commercial grade has been discovered at this point. | ||
| And we've identified some fuel enhancers like the Coleman fuel and VP racing fuel and some explosive targets that can be purchased at any sporting goods store. | ||
| We've also, as the sheriff mentioned, we've identified two semi-automatic handguns recovered from the Tesla. | ||
| We have successfully traced those firearms. | ||
| And I can tell you that Matthew Levesberg lawfully purchased both of these firearms on December 30th, 2024. | ||
| We have agents following up those investigative leads. | ||
| We know exactly where those firearms were purchased, and we will share any developments from those leads as they come in. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
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We also have the Clark County Fire Chief here, John Steinbeck, and he didn't have any additional updates. | |
| But if there's any questions in regards to what the fire department did during this, he's here to answer those questions as well. | ||
| With that, I'd just like to say before I take a couple questions from all of you, you'll notice that we're not releasing information that we haven't corroborated and verified. | ||
| We're very well aware of all of the things that are going around on social media, but that's just the way we're going to conduct this investigation. | ||
| We're not putting it out until we can tell you for a fact what information it is that we're putting out. | ||
| And so we're going to continue to do that. | ||
| But I'm also confident to tell the Las Vegas community and this great nation that we don't believe there's any further threat from this subject or anybody associated to him here in Las Vegas. | ||
| With that, Denise, I saw you had your hand up. | ||
| If you could just identify yourself, please. | ||
| Did this suspect have any other connections in Las Vegas? | ||
| Had he ever been here before or any reason to be here? | ||
| So the question was, did he have, did the subject have any ties to Las Vegas or had he ever been here before? | ||
| I do believe we had had one instance a number of years ago where he stayed at a local hotel, but we're still trying to verify that information as well. | ||
| Sir? | ||
| The David Charles KLASTV, there was you have a gentleman in a cyber truck, Trump Hotel. | ||
| There's information that the FBI was in Colorado Springs last night, possibly at this gentleman's home. | ||
| Any information about why? | ||
| I think I'll let Spencer answer that question. | ||
| So as I mentioned, the motivation at this point is unknown. | ||
| We are, as I mentioned earlier, following investigative leads both domestically and internationally as well. | ||
| And so that includes search warrants and witness interviews, collecting forensic information, and basically trying to compile the facts. | ||
| And so there's investigative activity taking place literally around the globe trying to determine what the potential nexus is. | ||
| But at this time, at this particular moment in time, as the sheriff aptly said, we have to focus on what we know and what we don't know. | ||
| We know we have a bombing, absolutely, and it's a bombing that certainly has factors that raise concern. | ||
| It's not lost on us that it's in front of the Trump building, that it's a Tesla vehicle, but we don't have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology or that any of the reasoning behind it. | ||
| That's the purpose of the investigation that we're conducting, is to get to the bottom of exactly what happened, why, and how. | ||
| Sir? | ||
| Tim Caputo with K ABC of Los Angeles. | ||
| You mentioned a number of similarities between this case and the order in New Orleans. | ||
| How far in the investigation process do you guys go to try to rule out that they are connected, knowing that you already have a couple things that seem to connect them together? | ||
| So the question is, how are we working to rule in or rule out any connections to the New Orleans event? | ||
| And the answer to that is every tip and lead that comes in, every piece of evidence that comes in, we don't discount it. | ||
| We work it through. | ||
| You know, it's an interesting thing during these kinds of investigations that if these turn out to be simply similarities, very strange similarities to have. | ||
| And so we're not prepared to rule in or rule out anything at this point. | ||
| There's lots more for us to do in this investigation. | ||
| We haven't even gotten into the phones or the computers, which are usually very, very instructive and informative to us as we investigate. | ||
| And we've got a lot more work to do to trace him, to see the stores that he went to, to rule out anybody else. | ||
| Lots and lots of investigative work to do. | ||
| And we're just trying to give you an update on what we know now that is factual. | ||
| We believe the question is, was the gunshot self-inflicted? | ||
| And we do believe it was since he was the only person in the vehicle and it occurred immediately prior to the vehicle blowing up. | ||
| Back there, sir? | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| I'm going to Chesky ABC News. | ||
| With the evidence you've seen so far, are you comfortable now calling this a suicide mission? | ||
| The question is, am I comfortable calling it a suicide mission? | ||
| I'm comfortable calling it a suicide with the bombing that occurred immediately thereafter. | ||
| I'm not giving it any other labels. | ||
| And with the friends and family you've spoken to so far, have they shared any prior red flags? | ||
| The question is, did we have any of the family members share any particular red flags? | ||
| Again, I'll go back to what I know is circulating on social media, but none of that has been verified at this point. | ||
| And final question, real quickly. | ||
| All the components you found inside the cyber truck, were they all purchased in Colorado? | ||
|
unidentified
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The question is, did we were all the components found inside of the cybertruck purchased in Colorado? | |
| And I don't know the answer to that. | ||
| That's part of why we're doing the extensive part of the investigation. | ||
| Associated Press, can you talk a little bit about the security measures you have in place at the hotel now? | ||
| So as you all know, we had just successfully completed a New Year's Eve event where hundreds of thousands of people come to Las Vegas. | ||
| I've extended our posture just like it is for a New Year's Eve event where I have thousands of police officers that are working day in and day out. | ||
| Obviously, dozens and dozens of people that are working on this investigation as well. | ||
| We'll continue to look at what that security posture looks like, but I'm confident in the safety of our community as we move forward. | ||
| Go ahead in the middle there. | ||
| Joe Muller Channel 13 here in Las Vegas ABC. | ||
| Does Luckinberger have any sort of criminal record at all? | ||
| Also, do you know when that row vehicle was rented? | ||
| The question was, is there any criminal record? | ||
| None that I'm aware of that has not been brought to my attention that he had a criminal record. | ||
| And I said that the cyber truck was rented on December 28th in Denver, Colorado. | ||
| I hear? | ||
| Hi, Stephanie Price, Fox News. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Have you guys been able to verify that he checked into the Resort World Hotel the day before this? | ||
| The question is, do we know if he checked into the resorts world the day before this? | ||
| I'm not aware of that information. | ||
| Sir? | ||
| Mike Allen, Fox 5, Vegas, you mentioned increased security presence at the Trump International. | ||
| Does that one extend further along the strip or is it just there and how long you anticipate that? | ||
| The question is generally about the security posture, and that's entirely our entire community, not only Fremont Street and the Strip, but surrounding neighborhoods as well, just to make sure that we have the community feeling that level of safety that they need to feel after an event such as this, right next to you there. | ||
| Katie from the Las Vegas Review Journal. | ||
| How exactly were you guys able to use the charging stations to track the Carter's Real? | ||
| The question is, how are we able to use the tracking or the charging stations to track the vehicle all the way through? | ||
| And I'm not exactly sure how to answer that question just yet. | ||
| I know that there's some capability by being able to determine that the car is connected to the charger. | ||
| One of the things that we're looking for is anybody that may have been at the charging location at the same time. | ||
| We're looking to try to identify them because their vehicles would have also had cameras that would have taped anybody in and around them. | ||
| We're trying to get people that may have been in the same locations at the same time that have video on their vehicle that could provide that video to us as well. | ||
| I'll take two more. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Can you talk about the damage being contained by the cyber truck itself? | ||
| And do you think that plays into whether he was aiming to hurt others or was it a public suicide? | ||
| Yeah, the question is about the cyber truck and the lack of damage to the cyber truck and containing the explosion. | ||
| Carlos, if you could put that truck back up there, it might be helpful. | ||
| But you know, you'll see if you look on the outside of that vehicle, it's hard to tell from that photograph, but other than the windows being gone, that's a bit more disassembled than it was at the scene, and the back area being blown off, there's no evidence of physical damage to the sides of that vehicle. | ||
| And so the explosion that was in that vehicle sort of vented out and up, but it didn't even damage the glass doors at the Trump. | ||
| So I'm not sure what that means. | ||
| I also know that there's a number of unexploded pieces of the things that he had inside of that vehicle. | ||
| And so I just don't think that it was done as well as he was expecting it to be done. | ||
| But go ahead. | ||
| So Fianna Lodrigas with University of Vegas. | ||
| I was wondering, were you able to recover the video from the cyber truck or was that destructive? | ||
| So the question is, are we able to recover the video from the cyber truck? | ||
| And many of you may know that those cyber trucks contain a tremendous number of cameras. | ||
| Again, Mr. Musk has sent out a number of his folks that will be arriving here this afternoon with the intent to try to capture the part of that that captured all of the video from inside of the truck. | ||
| Sir? | ||
| Just quickly, you had mentioned a number of the components in the back of the truck that did not go off. | ||
| Maybe this is a better suited question for ATF. | ||
| But when it comes to the rudimentary nature of the bomb, I think we mostly think of a bomb that is connected. | ||
| This seems like individual kind of incendiary and combustible components put together. | ||
| Can you speak to how you think this is a bomb, or was it just several pieces of things that might blow off and might explode that were just lit and gone off at the same time? | ||
| Yeah, I'll tell you, it does appear that it was. | ||
| I just want to be careful with my language here, but the level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience. | ||
| That most of the materials inside that Tesla were fuel to help fuel a greater explosion. | ||
| But it's too early to answer any question as if there was sophisticated connectivity to those components to make it ignite in the way that it did. | ||
|
unidentified
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All right, there was one last hand over here. | |
| I'll take your last question. | ||
| This is for Special Agent Evans, Mike Carter Deuce, Max. | ||
| Any idea if the suspect has been in touch with any outside terrorist groups? | ||
| Has this investigation extended globally? | ||
| The question is: do we know whether the subject's been in touch with any outside terrorist groups or if it's been investigated globally? | ||
| And Swins, you want me to. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, yeah, the question about whether it's being investigated globally, absolutely. | ||
| Like I said, we're running down investigative leads around the world. | ||
| No information that we're aware of right now that connects this individual to any terrorist organization around the world. | ||
| But that's obviously the thrust of the investigation: ruling out that there's any sort of terrorism nexus. | ||
| And then again, getting at what the ideology is. | ||
| We appreciate you all coming, and we will be back before you when there are substantial updates to provide to you. | ||
| Thanks for all your great work. | ||
| The 119th Congress is sent to Gavil into session tomorrow. | ||
| We spoke with a congressional reporter about some of the changes to expect in this next U.S. House session. | ||
| An article by Teresa Boudreaux, congressional reporter with The Center Square, begins: Republicans have released a new House rules package for the incoming 119th Congress that is packed with political wish list items. | ||
| It will make ousting the House Speaker more difficult. | ||
| She joins us now by phone. | ||
| Thanks for being with us. | ||
| Let's start with the ousting of the speaker. | ||
| What is the change? | ||
| Yeah, thank you so much for having me. | ||
| So, most notably, the bill makes it harder. | ||
| So, the current rules allow a single lawmaker to force a vote to vacate the chair. | ||
| And this is how former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted last Congress, and then Johnson was voted in. | ||
| But the proposed resolution would allow only members of the majority party to introduce a motion to vacate, and it would require at least eight co-sponsors from that party as well. | ||
| So, this would make it a lot more difficult to oust the House Speaker. | ||
| But Democrats are definitely concerned about that. | ||
| And some lawmakers have called it out, especially Representative Jim McGovern from Massachusetts. | ||
| And he was saying, oh, this is not a good thing, essentially, and that it does not show a spirit of bipartisanship. | ||
| Also, tomorrow we're going to have an election of the speaker, and it's a little uncertain now whether Speaker Johnson will continue. | ||
| He sounded confident today. | ||
| What have you been hearing? | ||
| So, Johnson is in a very vulnerable position right now with such a slim Republican majority in the House, and mostly because he's facing opposition from some in his own party. | ||
| So, Thomas Massey, for instance, has said unequivocally he is not voting for Johnson. | ||
| A lot of the opposition comes from how Johnson originally negotiated with Democrats over the continuing resolution back in December to keep the government open. | ||
| A lot of Republicans, including Chip Roy, who also is kind of on the fence, it seems, with whether to vote for Johnson's reelection. | ||
| But lawmakers, including him, Republican lawmakers, think that Johnson essentially folded to Democrats in the first edition, which had a lot of Democrat wish list items. | ||
| Now, that did not ultimately pass. | ||
| That was not the version of the continuing resolution that passed, but it kind of left a bitter taste in a lot of Republicans' mouths. | ||
| And so there are a couple who are either on the fence or have said that we're not going to vote for Johnson. | ||
| And it could be as little, Johnson can afford to lose more than two votes. |