Agreed...

Apologies for length...

I’m a forensic scientist and I work for LVMPD. I’m not involved with the investigation so I don’t have juicy information to provide (and even if I did/was involved, I could not and would not share). I’m just providing some GENERAL INFO as a framework putting things about which many people have mused into perspective...

First, we are a very large organization and it takes quite some time for everyone involved in an incident (including on-duty responders, off-duty responders, AND off-duty employees that are just witnesses) to file their paperwork and for all of it to be reviewed and the pool of information compiled. For any particular incident there’s also potentially mountains of citizen witness statements, surveillance footage, officer body-worn cameras, department transcripts, citizen recordings/live streams...you name it. Consider the NUMBER of casino cameras and the time period being examined—lets say there’s a meager 10 cameras and a 2-day window—that’s 480hrs of footage to be screened! (One person screening that footage in real time would work forty 12hr shifts with no breaks and no other work!) Then there could be also be mountains of physical evidence across multiple crime scenes with each item needing to be individually documented, collected, impounded, and catalogued within a database before any of it can even be examined by a forensic scientist (who also needs to then carefully document their examination, perform tests, interpret test results, write reports, and have their work independently reviewed by one or two additional scientists before releasing the forensic report to the investigator... keep in mind that forensic scientists are specialized and only perform a particular type of testing so if evidence needs to be examined by multiple specialties/disciplines, it needs to be processed by one scientist before it moves to the next scientist and so on, extending the timeline to pass through each forensic detail in tandem... DNA, trace, firearms, latent prints, chemistry, toxicology etc are all separate disciplines). Within LVMPD, no forensic results can be released to an investigator until after they’ve undergone technical review. No updates along the way. Nothing. Until done and reviewed. Period. We aren’t the only jurisdiction that has these policies. Also, eligible forensic results may need to be searched in databases like AFIS, NIBIN, CODIS and if there are hits to other investigations, each agency has to follow up on their end to confirm the matches and report associated info to each other before anything is then relayed to the investigator. Some evidence doesn’t hit to anything and other evidence could hit to investigations across multiple jurisdictions.

Second, for any incident investigation in general, not all information coming in is complete/accurate and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person(s) are being deceptive—they could just be mistaken or cannot make sense of what they witnessed depending on their state of mind... ie, children may have limited cognitive capacity, folks can be under the influence of drugs/alcohol, or people may speak English poorly (using incorrect words that don’t mean what they intend) or may even require a translator to be brought in. People also tend to change their storytelling after even small periods of time going over their own recollection and comparing it to details they’ve heard from other witnesses or saw/heard reported on news/social media. But yes, there’s also some deceptive information and also, because it’s Vegas, throw in some crazy. All of this needs vetted somehow.

Third, it obviously takes lots of time/resources to weed through everything and link it to the forensic reports... As a whole, it’s a complex process but more importantly a very dynamic process—the investigation’s direction and synopsis often change over time depending on the information compiled so far and the incoming forensic results so this doesn’t mean an investigation is being mishandled if the focus shifts rapidly (It’s important to go where the investigation leads rather than getting stuck on a narrative/explanation early on!!) But because of the fluidity of this process, typically as little information as possible is shared publicly until the investigation is complete. The benefits of this approach are two-fold: it eliminates the risk of releasing information that could later change (public loses trust when things are corrected too frequently—to what statements should the public place any value if it’s constantly retracted?) and it also preserves integrity of investigative information (example: details that could assist in evaluating the veracity of statements made later by suspects/associates)

Obviously with an incident of this magnitude, the public’s interest in the investigation is overwhelming. There is insane amounts of pressure to safely release information in a timely manner, but as we’ve already seen, it can change as the investigation unfolds and it’s still never fast enough as the public wishes. This is not meant to say that investigative agencies shouldn’t be held accountable for the information they release or shouldn’t be flogged for keeping the public in the dark unreasonably... I mean, we serve the public afterall so the public (as our primary stakeholder) is justified in holding us accountable! It’s just that, the interests of the public we serve encompass multiple dimensions that must be balanced carefully—expediency, access, and accuracy of information is a delicate triangle and shifting too far toward any particular one sacrifices the others.

Personally, I’d rather sacrifice the access/expediency for the sake of accuracy... but from what I read, I’m the minority opinion. To each their own. Potayto potahto.

Side note: casINGS are for sausages!! CasES are for expended cartridges!! (Some forensic scientists cringe when they hear/read casings! ??)