My role in that bit of ‘truther’-style op-ed was to put up the whole text.
My only question about the event itself is, where was the monitor for the hallway cam? Seems like he had an awful lot to do. And if he’s got the camera in the hall, why? That suggests he had a plan to get out. If it were just a suicide mission, he wouldn’t need to know what was going on in the hallway. But OTOH, if it were not a suicide mission, he’d have caused the chaos, shot a bunch of people, then bailed out before anyone reached the room. Unfortunately, he’d rented the room, so it would then become a manhunt.
Best guess is, he had not thought things through, was under the influence of prescription and/or street dope, and wasn’t too bright in the first place.
The alternative is, he never fired a shot, and two others were present; or at least one other shooter was present, who kept an eye on the camera monitor, and perhaps was trying to shoot the tanks, then capped the patsy.
I actually thought the opposite. I assume he knew that he was going to kill himself and that was the only non-negotiable thing in this event for him for one main reason, he used his own name to register and did nothing to hide his identity. .
I also assume he knew he had only minutes before he was located and that officers would be at his door. I believe that officers would have been at the hotel on a regular basis, it is a very large place. I believe he knew that once he started shooting that it would not take long for his position to be determined.
I assume that if he was a careful planner he would have made calculations as to how long it would take for someone to determine his position and the time it would take to confront him. If it were me I would assume that police and security would likely be positioned at the lobby and I would time the response time someone to get to his door. I assume he knew this time frame.
With those assumptions, I believe that if was not intent on suicide he would have registered as John Smith, had used a car other than his own, firearms that he did not purchase and then fired only for about 5 minutes or a period of time that is less than the time to go from the lobby to his room, and then exit.
I think the likely thing was that the camera in the hall was to give him an idea when his time was up. He could not chance being injured or caught if he wanted to commit. When someone showed up in the hallway it was his signal that his time was up.
I think he had a plan to get out but didn't care either way. He wanted to watch people die as he killed them, and nothing else mattered in comparison.
I read that the camera was on the peephole, or on a room service cart, or both. I assume the camera was to let him know when security got there, if they figured out where he was. I also suspect that besides scanning the ground with a scope (to enjoy what he saw as a show) instead of shooting all the time, he also checked the hall monitor so often that it interfered with his shooting. Bad planning and bad focus made the outcome less deadly than it might have been. I assume his plan was to run for it if he had no more good targets on the ground and no one was in the hallway. The guard ended that plan.
He was on an antidepressant, and that could easily have played a role in the shooting. Other than that, it looks like he was drug-free.