Jesus Campos, the Mandalay Bay security guard who was shot in connection with the Las Vegas massacre, will be subpoenaed to explain the timeline of events on that grim October night.
Campos was working as a security guard in the Mandalay Bay resort on Oct. 1, when Stephen Paddock opened fire with a series of rapid-fire weapons at a crowd attending a country music concert.
After the shooting, Campos disappeared from sight. He has made only one public appearance since the shooting, on the Ellen DeGeneres show on Oct. 18.
Campos will be forced to testify by a lawyer representing Rachel Sheppard, a 26-year-old from California who was shot three times during the attack.
Sheppard’s suit is one of six filed related to the attack.
Sheppard was shot in the chest and abdomen as she attended the concert, across the street from the resort.
“People kept picking me up and dropping me, and picking me up and dropping me, because we kept hearing the shots,” Sheppard said.
Somehow during the attack, one of Sheppard’s lumbar vertebrae was cracked—possibly while being dropped during one of these abortive rescue attempts.
Sheppard is suing MGM Resorts International, the owners of Mandalay Bay, Live Nation, a bump stock maker, and gunman Stephen Paddock’s estate.
A “bump stock” is a mechanical device attached to the back of a firearm which uses recoil energy to pull the weapons back against the shooter’s trigger finger, allowing the gun to fire faster than the shooter could pull the trigger.
Timeline Inconsistencies
Campos was working as a security guard at the Mandalay Bar resort on Oct. 1, the night of the shooting. He initially claimed he was investigating an alarm set off by an open room door where he found Paddock firing out the window.Campos was shot in the leg, but despite his wound, supposedly directed police to the gunman’s room, and later helped evacuate guests.
No one disputes that Campos was shot in the leg—but when, how, and why is unclear.
The original story was that Campos had approached Paddock’s room and distracted the shooter, possibly saving lives.
However, there have been inconsistent reports about when Campos reported hearing gunfire and when he was shot.
Initially the police said Campos was shot after Paddock opened fire on the concert while the concert was underway. On Oct. 9, Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said Campos was shot at 9:59 p.m., six minutes before the concert began. Then on Oct. 13, Sheriff Lombardo said Campos was shot by the gunman at 10:05 p.m.
“There was no alarm system for opened doors when I was there,” the former guard said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss security issues. “You know how often people would have to call hotel guests if that was the case?”
Campos also had a radio. On the Ellen DeGeneres show he claimed he called in the attack on his radio after he had been shot.
Mysterious Disappearance
After the shooting, Campos seemed to drop out of sight. First it seemed he was holed up in his home, with hired security guards out front.https://twitter.com/CraigNews3LV/status/918180339117277184
Campos was completely out of sight for several days. He then turned up at the San Ysidro border crossing in California—reentering the United States from Mexico about a week after the shooting.
This raises questions about how an important witness with a bullet wound in his leg could disappear from a crime scene and leave the country without police knowing where he was and for how long.
