The man who died outside the Trump hotel was shot in the head before the Cybertruck exploded, the sheriff said
The person inside the Tesla Cybertruck that burst into flames outside president-elect Donald Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas was shot in the head before exploding, officials said Thursday.
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a press conference that a gun was found at the feet of a man identified as Matthew Livelsberger. Officials believe the shooting was self-inflicted.
Livelsberger served in the Green Berets, highly trained special forces who work to fight terrorism overseas and train their counterparts, the military said in a statement. He has served in the military since 2006, rising through the ranks for a long overseas deployment, deployed twice to Afghanistan and served in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, the military said.
He was awarded two Bronze Stars, including one for gallantry under fire, an infantryman’s badge and a battalion commendation medal. Livelsberger was on authorized leave at the time of his death, according to the statement.
The FBI said Thursday in an email to X that it was “conducting a law enforcement operation” at a home in Colorado Springs, Colo., related to Wednesday’s explosion but did not provide further details.
The explosion of the truck, which was packed with explosives and petrol cans, happened hours after Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, rammed his truck into a crowd in the French capital of New Orleans early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people earlier. being shot by the police and killed.
The crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack and police believe the driver was alone.
Both Livelsberger and Jabbar spent time at what was then known as Fort Bragg, a large Army base in North Carolina that houses many military special operations units.
However, one of the officials who spoke to the Associated Press said that there is no change in their assignments at the center, which is now called Fort Liberty.
Chris Raia, deputy director of the FBI, said Thursday that officials found “no direct connection” between the New Orleans attack and the Las Vegas truck explosion.
One person was killed and seven were injured Wednesday when a Tesla Cybertruck that appeared to be carrying explosives burst into flames outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, authorities said.
Seven people nearby received minor injuries when the Tesla truck exploded. The video showed burning firecrackers, cans and other explosives falling from the back of the car. The walls of the truck bed were still intact because the blast shot straight up rather than sideways.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday afternoon on X that “we have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by a very large explosive and/or bomb that was placed in the bed of a rented Cybertruck and is not related to the vehicle itself.”
“All vehicle telemetry was fine at the time of the explosion,” Musk wrote.
Authorities know who rented the truck through the Turo app in Colorado, Kevin McMahill, the elected official of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, said Wednesday. He did not release the identity of the person.
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