MGM Resorts, the company that owns the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino where 58 people were killed and nearly 500 injured at a country music concert nearly two weeks ago, issued a statement Thursday afternoon discounting the new timeline of the shooting spree given by police earlier this week.
MGM says time police are reporting Stephen Paddock shot security guard Jesus Campos is "not accurate" and indicated that it believes the mass shooting started earlier.
“Although we prefer not to comment on the details of the investigation, we are issuing this statement to correct some of the misinformation that has been reported,” said the statement emailed to the Las Vegas Journal Review.
Lombardo said in a Monday press conference that the Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos was shot at 9:59 p.m., about six minutes before a gunman turned his weapons on the Route 91 Harvest festival crowd, killing 58 and leaving nearly 500 wounded.
“The 9:59 p.m. PDT time was derived from a Mandalay Bay report manually created after the fact without the benefit of information we now have,” the statement continued. “We are now confident that the time stated in this report is not accurate. We know that shots were being fired at the festival lot at the same time as, or within 40 seconds after, the time Jesus Campos first reported that shots were fired over the radio.”
So many questions about the case remain unanswered, not the least of which is Paddock's motive and how he was able to pull off the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Paddock lugged 23 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition up to his room over a three-day period, filling 13 suitcases.
Police have repeatedly said they remain stumped as to why Paddock, a man with no criminal history and no known political or religious ideology, would commit such a heinous act.
As WND reported Wednesday, the first lawsuit filed by a victim of the shooting has a team of lawyers who are also asking questions that the hotel owner, MGM Resorts International, has declined to answer.
3,000 cameras
Technology seems to have also failed to provide any answers.
Casinos like the Mandalay Bay “spend millions and millions of dollars on security,” a surveillance expert who helped install an early version of Mandalay Bay's security systems after it opened in the 1990s told the L.A. Times. The system he installed had close to 1,200 cameras, and he guesses Mandalay Bay has about 3,000 cameras now.
“They’re all recording 24/7. Anybody who walks through that door is an asset. They’re going to take care of their assets,” said the expert, who declined to be identified because of concerns of future litigation.
But, as WND reported Wednesday, the Mandalay had no cameras in its hallways for reasons of "privacy."
“Typically they want to see who’s coming onto the floor and off the floor, and they can tell now who goes into rooms with the key cards,” the expert was quoted saying in the Times.
Who is Jesus Campos?
There are also looming questions about the security guard who was shot in the leg by Paddock six minutes before the shooting began on the thousands gathered for a county music concert down below.
Jesus Campos was initially hailed as a "hero" by the sheriff and the FBI for ending Paddock's shooting prematurely, but it came out at a press conference Monday that Campos was actually shot six minutes before Paddock unleashed his barrage of bullets on the concert-goers.
Campos is not registered as a security guard with the State of Nevada, according to a searchable database, although there is a Larry Jesus Campos registered in Fontana, Nevada.
If his first name is indeed Larry it's unclear why he has been referred to by his middle name during all press conferences.
Independent journalist Laura Loomer visited Campos's house Wednesday and found it was being guarded by an armed security guard who identified himself as Troy Goff, of the private security firm On-Scene Services.
Goff told Loomer that Campos was not inside the house but he was providing protection for him and his family. He would not say who was paying his firm to guard the house, nor would he confirm or deny whether he also did work for the FBI, DHS, Las Vegas police or any other government agency.
Campos is the guard named by the sheriff and the FBI as a "hero" for saving so many lives. But he was actually shot in the leg six minutes prior to Paddock starting his shooting barrage on the concert-goers.
It was also reported Wednesday that a maintenance worker warned there was an armed gunman on the 32nd floor before the shooting started. So it is now known that the hotel had at least two prior warnings about a shooter on the 32nd floor, but police did not arrive until after Paddock finished his killing spree and shot himself.
None of the mainstream media at the press conference Monday asked hard questions about the timeline change. The next press conference has been scheduled for Friday.