Shot To Hell

Officials Release New Timeline Of Attack 

(L.A. Slimes)Police have dramatically changed their account of how the Las Vegas massacre began on Oct. 1, revealing Monday that the gunman shot a hotel security guard six minutes before opening fire on a country-music concert — raising new questions about why police weren’t able to pinpoint the gunman’s location sooner. 

Officials had previously said that gunman Stephan Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nev., shot Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos after Paddock had unleashed his deadly volley at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, an assault that began at 10:05 p.m.

Officials had previously credited Campos, who was shot in the leg, with stopping the 10-minute assault on the concert crowd by turning the gunman’s attention to the hotel hallway, where Campos was checking an alert for an open door in another guest’s room.
But Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Monday that Paddock shot Campos before his mass shooting — at 9:59 p.m. — and they now don’t know why Paddock stopped his attack on the crowd. 

Paddock, who had placed security cameras outside his room, shot Campos through the door of his suite, which was outfitted with a camera to survey the hallway, as was a room service cart parked outside. Police have said that Paddock fired 200 rounds into the hallway.
Investigators previously said that the security guard was shot after Paddock had already spent 10 minutes firing into the crowd of concertgoers gathered below the hotel.
In a timeline released last week, investigators said Paddock had stopped firing at the concert across the street at 10:15 p.m., and the first police officers arrived on the floor at 10:17 p.m. and encountered the wounded Campos at 10:18 p.m., who directed the officers to Paddock’s suite.
Police were not in a hurry to enter Paddock’s suite because the security guard’s arrival had halted the shooting, police implied in previously describing the timeline.  

But on Monday, the timeline changed.
“Mr. Campos was encountered by the suspect prior to his shooting to the outside world,” Lombardo said at a Monday news conference.
Police officers who started searching the hotel after the shooting began didn’t know a hotel security guard had been shot “until they met him in the hallway after exiting the elevator,” Lombardo said.
Charles "Sid" Heal, a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's commander and tactical expert, said the new timeline “changes the whole perspective of the shooting."
Heal said that if police had known immediately that a guard had been shot, they would have rushed the room while the gunman was still firing. He said it seemed to signal a breakdown in communication.
“It doesn't say much for hotel security,” Heal said.
After Campos was shot, a maintenance worker appeared on the 32nd floor and “Campos prevented him from receiving any injuries,” Lombardo said.
Representatives for the Mandalay Bay hotel casino and the union representing Mandalay Bay’s security guards did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Lombardo said investigators still had not uncovered a motive for Paddock’s attack and had found “zero” evidence of a second gunman. Investigators said Paddock was not seen with anyone before the attack.
Lombardo also revised the date on which police believe Paddock checked in to the Mandalay Bay hotel. While initially they said he had checked in on Sept. 28, three days before the shooting, they now believe he checked in on Sept. 25.
They continue to believe he was operating without a partner.
Lombardo said investigators had compiled 200 “instances” of Paddock moving around Las Vegas before the attack, and he was always alone.
The sheriff also revealed that Paddock had started drilling a hole next to the door of his suite, but the drilling apparently was not completed, and officials weren’t sure what the hole was for.
Lombardo said investigators had found “some evidence of medications” used by Paddock but declined to give any more information.

Whoopsie!


Thoughts, in order.

1) Door alarm? WTF?
1a) And WTF? Why would Campos walk up and try the stairwell first, rather than simply proceed to the elevator, and go straight to the floor in question?
And finding the stairwell door jammed, as he reported earlier, why would he then go investigating now-doubly suspicious activity, alone, unarmed, without radioing, waiting for additional security, etc. etc. etc.??

2) So a guest's door, not Paddock's suite, was the source of the alarm that Jesus Campos was investigating? And Paddock (presumably), rather than popping him once, hosed down the hallway, a straight corridor, and yet only hit Campos once, in the leg.
2a) How many (dozen) guests called downstairs and reported gunfire on 32, and/or reported the bleeding security guard they'd passed before ducking into the elevators to GTFO?
And if that number is zero, WTF again? An entire floor completely deserted at 10PM??
Nobody anywhere? Anyone? Beuller? Ferris Beuller...??

3) By shooting up the suite door, and winging the guard, Paddock has blown any hope of surprise to hell, because he's now alerted everyone on three floors that an armed lunatic with a machinegun is shooting up the hotel, and helpfully left bulletholes in the door to mark his suite with a big fat "X". Sh'yeah, right.

4) No shots have been fired at the music festival, so there's no confusion about that, no radio chatter, no frantic calls. What there should be is a 911 call from Mandalay Bay security to LVMPD: "Armed nut with a machinegun", and it should have gone out 5-6 minutes before the first shots were fired into the concert! So where's that 911 audio tape?

5) Which scores of LVMPD officers pulling concert security would have heard on their radios 1-3 minutes before any rounds had come flying in from the hotel machinegun nest!
And - BONUS - known WHERE the later gunfire was coming from when it happened!

6) But that didn't happen.

7) Meanwhile, instead of two brief periods before and after Campos' arrival, there is now one 6 minute window before firing commenced, and another window between the end of firing, and the 22:17 arrival of LVMPD, when anyone could have entered/exited 32-135, and moved to an adjacent suite, gone down another corridor, and used any of the stairwells, including the one right by 32-135, to exit the floor, because the stairwells were all unsecured, and LVMPD had no idea Campos was sitting and bleeding quietly outside the elevators, out of sight of Paddock's doors, and with no one watching who came or went.

8) As Paddock's suite wasn't the source of the door alarm, WTF shoot the security guard? Paddock, who'd watched the concert for three days, could've just waited for him to leave, and then gone to town, without interruption?

9) The "uncompleted" hole by his door could have been for some jury-rigged way to inside-lock the suite door(s) from the outside, after exiting, thus making them seem locked by the dead guy found by himself on the floor, and conveniently pinning the whole caper on him.
And leaving another person or persons free to split, ahead of the cops, and totally unseen and unsuspected.

10) So now, we have LVMPD sitting on a quiet room, with no gunfire, for over an hour, (after taking 18 minutes to get to a real shooting, five minutes before the festival shooting started?!?) for no reason. After all shooting has stopped. The only ear-witness the LVMPD has is now Campos, the guy miraculously wounded from less than 40 feet; officers outside never heard a single shot from the floor, including (pretty f**king suspiciously) the pop when Paddock is supposed to have given himself the coup de grace.

11) Absent video of him doing the actual deed, there is no longer any reason whatsoever to think Paddock shot anyone, including himself, and plenty of reasonable suspicion to think it very possible that person or persons unknown did this, and left the corpse there to take the rap. And we'll never know from Paddock, Campos, or the LVMPD, because none of them were around or in a position to testify to anything, until after it was all over.

12) Somebody dumping a dead body and about to commit mass murder would have every reason to pop the security guard. Especially if it was their door that had been the original alarm.

13) Paddock, OTOH, was guilty at that point of nothing but bringing his toys to the Vista Suite, and had committed nothing to raise any suspicion, let alone risk arrest for, or even to suffer an interruption.
(For bonus points, he had a pile of his own guns, in a suite he'd been in for nearly a week. So he couldn't be thinking - IF he was the shooter - that there was any way out but going out in a blaze of glory.)

14) So I'm not buying that he did this, or hauled the weapons into the room himself, unless they can show that happening on video, and including his video from inside the room.

15) He and the g/f were both out of his house for days. We have no idea if anyone else gained access, cracked his safe, scattered a beautiful Brady Campaign Poster display, popped Mr. Mystery Man, for a host of reasons far more plausible than "he just snapped", and then commenced the operation, leaving his corpse to get tagged for the crimes.

16) They also have him bouncing all over town (200 hits) in the days prior. So...doing what? Where? With whom? Why?

This case is just the case that keeps on giving, and until they provide absolute proof of the truth, people are going to be writing books and making movies about this one forever.

I smell something here.