I could move 50 AR-15s up to any room in any LV hotel in a week. Everybody uses luggage carts, they don’t hand carry their baggage. AR-s break into two pieces that will fit into standard luggage.
Even beyond that, folks carry big Igloo coolers and other odd items up to rooms on luggage carts. Folks have catered parties where food boxes are stacked up on the luggage carts. Conventioneers take their folded-up convention displays up to their rooms. This happens all day, every day.
It would be NO problem to haul 50 AR-15s up to a room. And the high-rollers can use the service elevators, where there are no cameras. But even so, a shooter could move all that luggage (containing the guns) in plain sight, because well-packed luggage carts moving all around is such a totally normal part of the casino picture. Parking is in the rear, so the carts just go from the attached garage to the elevators to the room.
That said, I am sure the casino has plenty of footage of Paddock on the ground floor and garage and around the elevators, where there are cameras. (There are no cameras in the halls or stairwells.) The big conspiracy here is the MGM trying to duck their liability in a mega-massive negligence lawsuit which is coming.
And add to it the revolving door between the LVMPD and casino security, where police brass take VERY lucrative jobs with the casinos upon retirement. Sheriff Lombardo, for example, has a big financial stake in protecting the casinos as much as he can, (changing and blurring the timeline, etc), if he wants to get that million-dollar “head of security” gig with one of the casinos after he retires.
The casino interest angle explains a great deal about this investigation, and why the story is losing its “legs”.
Billions of dollars at stake, and the stake holders are high level players in media and government with lots of reasons, lots of money, and lots of “juice” to tamp down this story.
Good points on your part.
Lack of a manifesto also works for a shooter seeking “immortality”. It keeps the conspiracy mill ginning along.
And add to it the revolving door between the LVMPD and casino security, where police brass take VERY lucrative jobs with the casinos upon retirement. Sheriff Lombardo, for example, has a big financial stake in protecting the casinos as much as he can, (changing and blurring the timeline, etc), if he wants to get that million-dollar “head of security” gig with one of the casinos after he retires.
WATCH: Sheriff Joseph Lombardo Told ‘Don’t Go There’ by Off-Camera Voice When Asked Question About Las Vegas Shooting
Yep. LVPD and the hotels have a very close relationship.
He was travelling back and forth between his home in Mesquite and Vegas. On that Thursday (?), he signed into the senior center for lunch and asked the cook for her enchilada recipe. Easy enough to load more weapons into the car and take in all or a few at a time straight through the middle of the Mandalay lobby and wave at security with no one the wiser.