New timeline in Vegas shooting raises questions on police response

[webfact]

New timeline in Vegas shooting raises questions on police response

By Tim Reid and Alex Dobuzinskis

 

The "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign is surrounded by flowers and items, left after the October 1 mass shooting, in Las Vegas, Nevada U.S. October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

 

(Reuters) - Las Vegas police faced new questions on Tuesday about their response to this month's mass shooting after a county sheriff disclosed the gunman shot a security guard before, not after, opening fire on a crowd below his window at the Mandalay Bay hotel.

 

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Aden Ocampo-Gomez said the office will respond later to questions involving police response time to the shooting that killed dozens of people at an outdoor concert.

 

On Monday, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo disclosed that gunman Stephen Paddock shot a hotel security guard responding to a door alarm near his 32nd-floor suite six minutes before he began firing out his window. Officials initially said Paddock shot the security guard after he began raining bullets down on the crowd.

 

"What we have learned is (the security guard) was encountered by the suspect prior to his shooting to the outside world," Lombardo said.

 

Paddock, 64, killed 58 people and injured hundreds, before fatally shooting himself as police responded. Nine days later, his motive remained a mystery.

 

Lombardo did not address whether the mass shooting could have been prevented based on the new timeline, but said it was unclear why Paddock stopped firing on the concert.

 

In an active shooter situation, response time can be as fast as three minutes, said Sid Heal, a retired Los Angeles Sheriff's Department commander and tactical expert. He questioned why it took police so long to reach the room if hotel security immediately called them.

 

"Someone needs to account for those minutes," he said.

 

Nevada Lt. Governor Mark Hutchison told CNN on Tuesday that there was a lot of information to evaluate, but acknowledged that Paddock did not stop firing because of the guard, Jesus Campos, as was initially assumed.

 

Campos immediately alerted the hotel's in-house security team after he was shot at 9:59 p.m., Lombardo said.

 

Police were not aware Campos had been shot until they met him in the hallway at 10:18 p.m., three minutes after Paddock had stopped firing on the concert. Police blew open Paddock's hotel room door 81 minutes after the shooting started.

 

Protocol for Las Vegas hotels and casinos is to barricade the corridor where a shooting takes place and wait for police to arrive, said David Shepherd, a security expert who advises the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and who ran the security team at The Venetian hotel on the Vegas Strip for eight years.

 

Police are trained to wait and negotiate with a shooter, rather than storm the room immediately, he said. The initial reports that night of multiple shooters at several hotels would also have confused police, he added.

 

"One of the biggest priorities is not to lose the life of a police officer," Shepherd said by telephone. "So in those six minutes, it is highly unlikely police would have stormed that room."

 

David Hickey, the president of the union that represents Campos, said that based on what he had heard, police and security officers acted as quickly as possible under the circumstances. Officials with MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay, declined to comment.

 

(Reporting by Tim Reid, Alex Dobuzinskis and Keith Coffman; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by David Gregorio and Tom Brown)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-10-11

[malibukid]

MGM and Co. are disputing this to cover any potential civil litigation.

 

[Media1]

22 minutes ago, malibukid said:

MGM and Co. are disputing this to cover any potential civil litigation.

 

Yes

[hhinhh]

"Police blew open Paddock's hotel room door 81 minutes after the shooting started."

 

I think there will be a lot of questions to be answered!

[OMGImInPattaya]

There are so many questions about the official story of what happened in Las Vegas. There are questions if there was more than one shooter or if the shooter had someone else in the room at the time of the shooting. The timeline of events doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The police also have reported finding a mobile phone charger in the room that did not match any of the phones found herein. Was it left behind by an accomplice or other person involved in the shooting? Why was there the hour long delay in breeching the room...to allow one or more of the shooters to escape? Also, we're expected to believe Paddock was all hyped-up about something (still unexplained) that he was willing to kill all those people with automatic weapons fire and then he comitted suicide (when he wasn't yet under any police fire/assault). Wouldn't it make more sense, as he seemed to want to cause maximum chaos, injury, and death, that he would also take on the police at his door? He had the time to setup a defensive perimeter with the room furniture and had ample weapons and ammo we're told. It would have been a chance to possibly wound or kill a couple more people before he was finally taken down. Was he in fact killed by someone who then made an escape?  These are just some of the questions that need to be answered.

Edited October 11, 2017 by OMGImInPattaya

[boomerangutang]

3 minutes ago, OMGImInPattaya said:

There are so many questions about the official story of what happened in Las Vegas. There are questions if there was more than one shooter or if the shooter had someone else in the room at the time of the shooting. The timeline of events doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The police also have reported finding a mobile phone charger in the room that did not match any of the phones found herein. Was it left behind by an accomplice or other person involved in the shooting?

There was one shooter.  No question about that.  There was not someone else in the room.  Please don't put wind in the sails of conspiracy theorists, as right-wingers are prone to do.  The phone charger, whether true or not, is a non-issue.

[OMGImInPattaya]

4 minutes ago, boomerangutang said:

There was one shooter.  No question about that.  There was not someone else in the room.  Please don't put wind in the sails of conspiracy theorists, as right-wingers are prone to do.  The phone charger, whether true or not, is a non-issue.

And you know all this how? I guess the Gulf of Tonkin incident actually happened and there were WMDs in Iraq as well.

[boomerangutang]

3 minutes ago, OMGImInPattaya said:

And you know all this how? I guess the Gulf of Tonkin incident actually happened and there were WMDs in Iraq as well.

I know it because that's what law-enforcement is reporting.  The story may adjust, but there was never any claim of more than one shooter.  Methinks that's purely right-wing conspiracy bs, which they're so adept at.

[Ron19]

A troll post has been removed

[hugocnx]

2 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

I know it because that's what law-enforcement is reporting.  The story may adjust, but there was never any claim of more than one shooter.  Methinks that's purely right-wing conspiracy bs, which they're so adept at.

Says left wing know it all???

[Chang_paarp]

5 hours ago, OMGImInPattaya said:

<snip> The police also have reported finding a mobile phone charger in the room that did not match any of the phones found herein.  <snip>

 

This could mean that the police were more thorough at checking the room than the hotel cleaners.

[OMGImInPattaya]

1 minute ago, Chang_paarp said:

 

This could mean that the police were more thorough at checking the room than the hotel cleaners.

Yes it could...but what are we always told...that the most simple explanation is usually the correct one, right?

[ilostmypassword]

31 minutes ago, OMGImInPattaya said:

Yes it could...but what are we always told...that the most simple explanation is usually the correct one, right?

Yes, but "simple-minded" does not equal "simple".

[boomerangutang]

Right after 9-11 a pic was circulated which showed the fireball at one of the towers.  It was photoshopped to show a devil's face.   The caption was 'whatthefuck?!'   It was early days with photoshop (it was unknown to most folks at that time), so many viewers saw the devil face on the fireball and probably thought it was real.

 

That defines right-wing conspiracy theorists, who are always quick to grab onto any ridiculous idea tossed out to them, like a pack of dogs thrown a rubber duck which has been dipped in chicken soup.   They did it with the Obama-is-a-Kenyan-Muslim thing. They did it with Pizzagate, and they'll continue to do it with the Vegas massacre, on and on.

[FritsSikkink]

Maybe they feared for their life, they do it quite a lot before they shoot an innocent man.

[marginline]

17 hours ago, webfact said:

In an active shooter situation, response time can be as fast as three minutes, said Sid Heal, a retired Los Angeles Sheriff's Department commander and tactical expert. He questioned why it took police so long to reach the room if hotel security immediately called them.

 

"Someone needs to account for those minutes," he said.

With respect, as LASD Commander Heal (ret.) writes on Linkedin:

Quote

Commander

Los Angeles Sheriff's Department

1989 – Present (28 years)

One of three "Commanders of the Department" in which the assignments were generally troubleshooting at a strategic level.

 

What credibility does he think he has to criticise the first responders and heroes from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department if as...

Quote

"One of three Commanders of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department"

1. Sheriff Lee Baca (Now Convicted Felon)

2. Undersheriff Paul Tanaka (Now in Prison - Convicted Felon)

3. Commander Sid Heal (ret.)

Commander Heal (ret.) was probably privy to the abuses which convicted Baca and Tanaka please?