The US Army soldier shot himself in the head inside the Tesla Cybertruck which exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
According to officials, Military ID, guns, fuel and firework were found from the charred remains of the vehicle which also injured seven people in the explosion.
“I’m comfortable calling it a suicide, with a bombing that occurred immediately thereafter. I’m not giving it any other labels, ” Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in response to a reporter’s question at a Thursday news briefing.
“The level of sophistication is not what we would expect from an individual with this type of military experience,” said Kenneth R. Cooper, the assistant special agent in charge of the San Francisco field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“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,” said Spencer Evans, the Las Vegas FBI’s special agent in charge.
According to authorities, Livelsberger was an active-duty US Army Green Berret and was serving in Germany with 10th Special Forces Group and was on leave at the time of the incident.
He was awarded a total of five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire, a combat infantry badge and an Army Commendation Medal with valor.
He was visiting the United States on an approved leave. And he rented the Tesla truck in Denver on Dec. 28, McMahill said.
According to New York Post, officials told that Livelsberger’s wife also broke up with him six days before he killed himself inside the vehicle.
Livelsberger drove from Colorado through New Mexico and Arizona, a route officials traced using data from Tesla charging stations he had visited along the route.
According to the officials, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department received a report of an explosion at around 8:40 am. The witnesses said that they saw the truck engulfed in flames in front of the hotel.
The fire firefighters found at least two pieces of identification that confirmed Livelsberger’s identity.
Livelsberger rented the vehicle on the peer-to-peer rental app Turo, according to the company, and the Tesla truck was rented the same way. Additionally, both drivers had served in the military, including stints in Afghanistan and at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
But it was not clear whether they had ever been in the same place at the same time, and authorities said they had not yet found any signs of a link between the men.
