Dayton Daily News

Could police have taken down gunman sooner?

200 shots fired in hotel hallway before concert targeted.

- By Michael Balsamo

The revised timeline given by investigat­ors for the Las Vegas massacre raises questions about whether better communicat­ion might have allowed police to respond more quickly and take out the gunman before he could kill and wound so many people.

On Monday, Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Stephen Paddock shot and wounded a Mandalay Bay hotel security guard outside his door and sprayed 200 shots down the hall six minutes before he opened fire Oct. 1 from his high-rise suite on a crowd at a country music festival below.

That was a different account from the one police gave last week: that Paddock shot the guard, Jesus Campos, after unleashing his barrage of bullets on the crowd. He killed 58 people and injured hundreds more.

The sheriff had previously hailed Campos as a “hero” whose arrival in the hallway may have led Paddock to stop firing. But on Monday, Lombardo said he didn’t know what prompted Paddock to end the gunfire and take his own life.

“This changes everything,” said Joseph Giacalone, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former New York City police sergeant. “There absolutely was an opportunit­y in that timeframe that some of this could’ve been mitigated.”

Giacalone ad d ed: “By engaging the shooter ahead of time during this event, it could’ve saved a lot of heartache.”

Police have released few details about the new time- line and did not respond to questions from The Associated Press, including whether anyone called 911 to report the hallway shooting.

“Our officers got there as fast as they possibly could and they did what they were trained to do,” Assistant Sher- iff Todd Fasulo said.

Fasulo explained the change in the timeline by saying that dozens of investigat­ors have been using different sources of informatio­n — including surveillan­ce video, computers, police body cameras, cellphones and interviews — and that not all clocks are in sync.

Last week, police said Paddock had shot at concertgoe­rs for 10 minutes and stopped firing around 10:15 p.m. The first officers arrived on the 32nd floor at 10:17 p.m. and encountere­d the wounded guard at the elevator bank about a minute later, police said.

The security guard had been responding to a door alarm on the floor when he heard drilling that he found odd, Undersheri­ff Kevin McMahill told KNPR on Tuesday. That was when Paddock fired hundreds of rounds at the guard and a maintenanc­e man, McMahill said.

Paddock had power tools and was trying to drill a hole in a wall, perhaps to mount another of the security cameras he set up around him, or to point a rifle through, but he never completed the work, Lombardo said. He also drilled holes and bolted a metal bar to try to prevent the opening of an emergency exit stairwell door near his room.

Las Vegas police officers had been searching the hotel for the gunman and did not learn the guard had been shot until they met him in the hallway after getting off the elevator, the sheriff has said.

 ?? JOHN LOCHER / ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Flowers, candles and other items surround the famous Las Vegas sign Monday at a makeshift memorial for victims of a mass shooting.
JOHN LOCHER / ASSOCIATED PRESS Flowers, candles and other items surround the famous Las Vegas sign Monday at a makeshift memorial for victims of a mass shooting.
 ?? ERIK VERDUZCO / LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL ?? Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said he didn’t know what prompted Stephen Paddock to end the gunfire and take his own life.
ERIK VERDUZCO / LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said he didn’t know what prompted Stephen Paddock to end the gunfire and take his own life.

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