“The Mandalay Bay security guard who sparked national interest after disappearing from the public spotlight surfaced this week on Ellen DeGeneres’ show,” foxnews.com reports. “In a pre-recorded interview set to air Wednesday afternoon, [Jesus Campos] told DeGeneres he had trouble reaching the shooter’s floor to inspect a door that was left ajar on the night of the shooting.” As we’ve reported, killer Stephen Paddock had bolted it shut. What we now learn . . .
Campos said he reached the floor through another stairwell and inspected the metal bracket from the other side. But before the shots started, he heard what he thought was a drilling sound near Paddock’s room and called security — which sent maintenance worker Stephen Schuck to the floor to investigate.
As Campos walked back into the hallway from a room that leads to the stairwell, the door, which he said was heavy, made a loud noise as it closed behind him.
“I believed that’s what caught the shooter’s attention,” Campos said. “As I was walking down, I heard rapid fire. At first I took cover. I felt the burning sensation. I went to go lift my pant leg up and I saw the blood.”
Campos told Degeneres that Paddock was firing from behind the closed door of his room, but he wasn’t sure how.
Mandalay Bay building engineer Stephen Schuck joined Ellen for the chin wag with the comedienne.
Schuck said he accessed the floor from a service elevator and didn’t notice the shooting until he got closer to Paddock’s room.
“Once I got more than halfway is when I saw Jesus, and I started to hear shooting,” Schuck said. “And I thought – at the time I didn’t know it was shooting – I thought it was a jackhammer and, as an engineer, I thought, ‘we are not working up here late at night. We wouldn’t be doing that.’”
Schuck said Campos leaned out from his hiding spot and yelled at Schuck to take cover, which saved his life as bullets whizzed by.
“Everyone came together to help that night, even in the darkest hour,” said Campos, who thanked the Las Vegas police, FBI, first responders and hospital workers.
Yes, well, HOW did they come together?
Despite (because of?) his appearance on Ellen’s chat show, we still don’t know the exact sequence of events in the Mandalay Bay Hotel before, during and after Stephen Paddock opened fire.
The ABC talking head notwithstanding, Campos’s account does not “seem to clarify weeks of confusion about the shooting’s timeline.”
Specifically, how long did it take Campos to radio his report of the shooting? How much time elapsed between Mr. Campos’ report and phone notification of the shooting to hotel security and the arrival of two on-site police officers on the 32nd floor, what Mr. Campos said and how, when or if that information was relayed to the Las Vegas police?
Enquiring minds still would like to know.
None of that was discussed in the ABC news clip. Perhaps that will be covered when the full interview airs. Or perhaps Degeneres agreed not to touch those topics as part of the price of securing the Campos interview. We’ll see later this afternoon.