Sheriff Joe Lombardo made the bombshell admission on Monday that security officer Jesus Campos was in fact Paddock's first victim.My interpretation is that the "open door alarm" that Campos was investigating was the door to the stairwell. I had assumed that it was a guest room, but I no longer believe that.Previously, police had said he was the hero who disturbed the killer around 15 minutes after the shooting began and brought it to an end.
But now it's emerged that the chaos at the Mandalay Bay began when Mr Campos went to investigate a stairwell door which was adjacent to Paddock's hotel room.
Paddock, 64, had screwed [tje stairwell door] shut in an effort to obstruct responding police.This is confusing. Which side of the door was Campos on and which side was Paddock on? If there was an open door alarm on Floor 32, I would assume that Campos would take the elevator to 32 to investigate. May Campos was already on 31 or 33 when he got the call of the open door and decided it was easier to take the stairs.He was in the middle of installing cameras when he heard Mr Campos on the other side of the door using his radio.
Paddock sprayed hundreds of bullets through the stairwell door, hitting Mr Campos in the leg at 9.59pm.
Courageously, he raised the alarm and stayed in the stairwell.
I'm guessing that Paddock was putting his cameras in the hallway of 32. That would put Paddock outside of the stairwell and Campos in the stairwell. Did Paddock hear Campos' radio and shoot through the stairwell door? If so, that throws other things I believe in doubt. If Campos was behind the barricaded stairwell door when he was shot, he didn't open the door and walk down the hallway on 32. Also, this theory means that my original understanding that Paddock shot at Campos through his guest room door is not accurate.
The police came up from 31 via the stairwell. Why didn't they take the elevator directly to 32? I'm guessing that Campos remained behind the stairwell door and was discovered there by police. Police forced open the jammed stairwell door and emerged on 32. That's when they used Campos' master key to evacuate other guests on 32 and explains why Campos didn't help guests leave on his own.
Lots of speculation there. I better just leave it at that.
From the same article:
“Las Vegas cops didn’t find Stephen Paddock’s room until he’d already ended his mass shooting - even though a security guard was waiting outside injured.
Police are facing difficult questions about why it took at least 25 minutes to locate the killer, and then another 45 minutes before to storm his hotel suite.”
Some of the questions that police should already have answers to but we don’t yet know include:
1) Did Campos — after being shot — immediately call 911? Common sense would suggest that this was not a security issue, even if he were to be joined by an armed security officer. Was he trained to use common sense not ignore — i.e. to call 911 before alerting someone in security.
2) If Campos did not call 911, when did he call/radio MGM security?
3) When did security (Campos or someone else) first call 911 about the 32nd floor shooting?
4) After the police received the call from MGM security, how quickly did they react?
There were opportunities for MGM to mess up, for the police to mess up, and for them both to mess up in response to the Campos shooting.