Jesus Campos is the Mandalay Bay security guard shot by spree killer Stephen Paddock before the murderer opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 concert goers. A week after the incident, Mr. Campos agreed to interviews with NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News. Mr. Campos was a surprise no-show . . .
His union boss revealed that Campos “disappeared” immediately after a private meeting with MGM Grand executives. Campos re-emerged in public via the Ellen show [full interview below]. That seems a strange choice. Or not.
Ms. Degeneres and the Mandalay Bay’s owners, MGM Grand, are hardly strangers. Ms. Degeneres’ show and persona are the basis of a slot machine found in the Mandalay Bay hotel and elsewhere.
Assuming Ellen’s deal with slot maker IGT follows standard practice, the comedienne received a licensing fee for signing on and a percentage of every dollar spent by gamblers.
Given the time Ms. Degeneres devoted to the machines on her TV program, social media and through personal appearances — publicity worth tens of millions of dollars — her payout must be well into seven, maybe even eight figures. And ongoing.
In short, Ellen is in Las Vegas’ pocket.
So when Mr Campos’s MGM handlers apparently nixed his interviews with actual news programs and arranged a spot on the Ellen show, Ms. Degeneres was ready, willing and able to give the guard a platform to promote the idea that he was a hero.
‘MGM was behind the decision to call off all the interviews and did a deal with Ellen, knowing she would not play hardball on the timeline as long as she had the exclusive,’ a TV insider told DailyMail.com.
While that sounds more than a bit like a made-up source, it’s certainly true that the celebrity chat show host failed to ask the security guard the critical question which would have established his “courage”: what happened when?
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office official Mandalay Bay shooting timeline has changed three times now. (The Daily Mail article lists all three.)
The third version (above) followed a press release by MGM Grand. The casino operator’s timeline “answered” serious questions about the hotel’s response to the shooter raised by timeline number two (below).
Specifically, the gap between the moment Stephen Paddock shot security guard Jesus Campos and the moment Paddock opened fire on the crowd below his room shrank from six minutes to forty seconds.
Crucially, both MGM and Clark County’s timeline number three makes no mention about when — or even if — Mandalay Bay security called the Las Vegas police to raise the alarm about an active shooter.
As victims of Stephen Paddock’s indiscriminate slaughter lawyer-up, MGM Grand faces potentially billions of dollars in legal liability. No wonder, then, that news3lv.com reports . . .
Mandalay Bay and its corporate owner MGM Resorts have been ordered not to destroy anything that could be considered evidence in a civil negligence trial over events related to the Route 91 music festival.
The order was sought by attorneys who represent Rachel Sheppard, a California woman who survived the attack, despite being shot in the chest three times.
The American mainstream media has dropped the ball on this story, preferring to highlight efforts to outlaw the pieces of plastic Stephen Paddock attached to his AR-15s and the 100-round ammunition magazines he used during his attack.
Truth be told, security guards and law enforcement can’t always prevent evil people from carrying out evil acts. But they can be prepared and react when they such an attack occurs. And they should be held accountable for their actions afterwards, so that we can learn from their successes. And failures.
Still waiting on a slide fire stock for this baby. >:3
What this whole situation needs is a good HONEST 3rd party After Action Review. Something that looks at everything to see if:
1) The timeline is correct.
2) The response was appropriate in terms of equipment, operators, and speed.
3) The suspected shooter exhibited or did not exhibit indicators prior to the attack.
4) The agencies involved in the original response responded correctly.
5) The TTPs in place actually worked to make the response fast and efficient enough to actually save lives.
6) Security at the event responded appropriately.
7) Steps could’ve been taken to better secure the event and prevent this situation.
8) Police response procedures could be improved.
9) Hotel response could be improved.
10) What caused any delays in an effective and appropriate response and how to fix the issues.
But what do I know I’m just a lowly ATF agent named Bob commenting on a gun forum while at work…
This
RF,
Thank you for another great article.
What model will the fed gov use, that ALL states will agree to? Constitutional carry-not likely, finger prints and a B.G. check-nope, hours of class lecture, safety training and storage with hours of compitenancy(sic) range live fire training, having to re train every 5 years with lots of restrictions yeah, probably. I like Washington state’s model B.G. check W/ fingerprints. I prefer *Constitutional carry* or nothing.
That blonde holding the “bitter clingers” sign is yummy! She’s just my size.
I’ve got kids and I don’t want to deal with the hassle of reporting stolen firearms, so yes, my guns are locked up when they are not on my person, like any responsible gun owner.
Would be curious to see the bank statements from Campos in the next few years, and the details of said payments. Sure those are very, very quiet though. It would be interesting if his handlers weren’t the feds but rather MGM.
Are they drop safe?
Why is TTAG promoting this speculation which is close to conspiracy nonsense? Let the investigation run it’s course. I don’t come here to read this kind of content, and frankly it makes gun owners look paranoid. We’ve got enough PR problems as it is.
Then don’t read it and put your head back in the sand while your rights are stripped away by the rabid anti-gun zealots using the potential incompetence of the hotel as cover for their march.
only 18 percent of Americans with permits carry every day. That doesn’t seem right, does it?
I think that’s feasible, at least in a state with a lot of permits. The more hoops you have to jump through to get the permit, the less likely those who don’t want to carry full time will go through the process to get the permit. In states with easy permits, hunters get permits to make hunting more convenient and don’t carry at all the other ten months of the year.
In other words, I bet it’s less than 18 percent in Florida and more than 18 percent in California and Massachusetts.
And I bet it’s really low in states that have easy/cheap permits and many difficult to avoid GFZs. Can’t carry in a restaurant, or within 1000 feet of a school or a house with a daycare license? Might as well not carry at all, unless you think today is the day you’re going to need it.
I just wait for it to stop moving.
Not as challenging but darn effective.
Still clays are the best.
Them’s tough to clean, but they’s good eatin’.
Shotgun skills truly are different from handgun or rifle skills. Your eyes need to stay focused on the target. The shotgun bead is something you may or may not be conscious of, but it’s never something you focus on.
So if your initial firearms training involved rifles (Focus on the front sight, damnit!) then the first thing you need to do with a shotgun is learn how to NOT look down the rim at that bead.
Oh, and if you have never tried the shotgun sports, I want you to know that blasting a clay target to powder, right out of the sky, is an absolutely therapeutic endeavor. It’s even more enjoyable than ringing steel at long range. Nothing beats a round of trap (or four) after a stressful day at work.
Criminalizing the free exercise of a right in order to suppress or eliminate that right is a thing that out of control governments do. That is why the second amendment was included in the Bill of Rights. At one time or another, carrying a concealed weapon was criminalized in every state in the Union, except one. Yaaa Vermont! Exercising the right to bear arms has been discouraged in this country through the imposition of draconian criminal penalties, for a very long time. This legacy must be overcome through reform of the law which, over time, will lead to a change in our fellow citizens attitudes. This will increase the number of citizens who carry daily.
Or, a dramatic increase in the severity and frequency of the threats we face every day. That would also increase the number of citizens who carry daily.
Skeet shooting: there has never been something I love so much that I’ve been so singularly poor at.
I’ve said it many times – if that clay isn’t flying straight at me or away from me, it’s getting away.
you can train a dog to retrieve whole clays.
just sayin.
That is a fine looking wallet.
Seems to me the other accoutrements should have a few gold accents to go with it.
Waiting for the mare to say “Fire !”
“The name’s Plissken.”
“You put your right hand in.”
“You put your right hand out.”
“You do the liberal mislead, and you shake it all about!”
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Had me worried for a second with that first line… 🙂