The guard speaks

Hotel security guard Jesus Campos details his saving role in the massacre, after police revise the shooting timeline

DAYS AFTER “DISAPPEARING” FOLLOWING HIS heroic role during the Oct. 1 Las Vegas massacre, hotel security guard Jesus Campos has revealed what led him to be caught up in modern US history’s worst mass shooting. In an interview on Ellen that aired on Oct. 18, Campos said he went to the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel to investigate an open door alert and found a stairwell door fixed shut by metal brackets. “That’s just out of the ordinary,” he told Ellen Degeneres.

After calling security, Campos walked through another door that slammed behind him, which may have alerted shooter Stephen Paddock, who was in the room adjacent to the door. “As I was walking down, I heard rapid fire and at first I took cover,” said Campos, who avoided media attention in the shooting’s aftermath. “I felt a burning sensation. I went to go lift my pant leg up and I saw the blood. That’s when I called it in on my radio that shots had been fired.” Building engineer Stephen Schuck, who also appeared on Ellen, arrived soon after. Campos “said, ‘Take cover, take cover,’ ” said Schuck. “If he didn’t say that, I would’ve got hit.”

In a revised timeline, Las Vegas police said the hallway shooting occurred at “close proximity” to 10.05 PM, when Paddock opened fire on concertgoers on the Las Vegas strip, killing 58 and wounding 546. Going by multiple video sources, The New York Times reports the hallway shooting occurred between Paddock’s first and second bursts of gunfire on the crowd. A motive for the massacre remains unknown.

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Campos refused money to appear on Ellen, but Degeneres gave him season tickets to his NFL team, the Oakland Raiders.

It is believed Campos also saved the life of a hotel guest who nearly walked into the gunfire after leaving her room on the 32nd floor.