(3 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Las Vegas – 3 January 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Spencer Evans, Las Vegas FBI special agent in charge:
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"During the FBI’s international investigation to date, as I mentioned, we have interviewed family members, friends, subjects, associates and military members that he served with around the globe. Through these interviews, we’ve found that the subject held no animosity towards the president elect. Investigative steps have discovered and information from the Army indicates that he likely suffered from PTSD. And we are also aware that there were potential other family issues or personal grievances in his own life that may have been contributing factors. Again, we’re looking into all of that."
2. Still displayed on a screen showing Matthew Livelsberger
3. Various of a video displayed on a screen showing Livelsberger at a Tesla charging station
4. Various stills displayed on a screen showing a charred identification card and cellphone
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Dori Koren, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Sheriff:
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"In that note application, he (Matthew Livelsberger) seemed to have two letters, one letter in particular, as you can see here, this is an excerpt from that letter. He says ‘fellow service members, veterans and all Americans, time to wake up. We are being led by weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves.’ But then there’s a second letter where there’s some more excerpts. This one seems to be dated after the fact in that notes application. And in there you can read a couple of the excerpts. ‘We are the United States of America, the best country people to ever exist. But right now, we are terminally ill and headed towards collapse. This was not a terrorist attack was a wake-up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?"
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Spencer Evans, Las Vegas FBI special agent in charge:
As Sheriff Koren mentioned, although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who is struggling with PTSD and other issues."
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STORYLINE:
A highly decorated Army soldier who died in an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left a note saying it was stunt to serve as “wakeup call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday.
Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in the note that he needed to “cleanse my mind” of the lives lost of people he knew and “the burden of the lives I took.”
Livelsberger apparently harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officials said.
“Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues,” FBI Special Agent In Charge Spencer Evans said at a news conference.
The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the hotel.
Investigators identified the Tesla driver — who was burned beyond recognition — as Livelsberger by a tattoo and by comparing DNA from relatives. The cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, according to coroners officials.
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