Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Vegas killer shot guard six minutes before massacre
Cops reveal big timeline change but no motive
LAS Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock shot a hotel security guard six minutes before he massacred 58 people, police have revealed.
The hero guard, Jesus Campos, was badly wounded but managed to alert colleagues and possibly prevented the death toll from being far worse.
It marks a major shift in the timeline as investigators previously believed the guard was shot after the bloodbath started at 10.05pm on October 1.
Sheriff Joe Lombardo also said detectives were still no closer to finding a motive, despite reviewing 1,000 leads.
He admitted being frustrated by the slow pace of the probe but explained: “It is because this individual purposely hid his actions leading up to this event and it is difficult for us to find the answers to those actions.” Police said security guard Campos was hit in the leg by Paddock, who fired 200 rounds down the hallway from the door to his 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
Campos had been investigating the sound of drilling when he was apparently detected by one of the secret cameras Paddock had set up outside his room. The gunman went on to fire thousands of shots from his suite towards a large crowd at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival 1,200ft away on the Las Vegas Strip. Lombardo said it was unclear why Paddock stopped shooting after a 10-minute onslaught and suggested he may have initially planned to escape. The Clark County Sheriff also revealed the killer fired at jet fuel tanks at nearby Mccarran International Airport, stocked his car with explosives and had personal protection gear in his suite.
Paddock, 62, shot himself and did not leave a note, only a document containing numbers. The killer, from Mesquite, Nevada, had gone out gambling the night before he killed 58 and wounded hundreds more in the worst mass shooting in modern US history.