More Mandalay Bay Las Vegas Shooting Twist & Turns

Las Vegas, NV – -(Ammoland.com)- Ever since Stephen Paddock opened fire from his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas on October 1 2017, questions have swirled around the shooter, his motive, the actions of the hotel’s security staff, and virtually ever other aspect of the attack and subsequent investigation.

Many of the questions were a direct result of the Las Vegas police department changing the reported timeline – repeatedly — of the events that night.

The latest news, which won’t do much to quiet conspiracy theorists, came from courtroom testimony on Wednesday January 17th. Following a virtual news vacuum in recent months, a number of media outlets had filed suit to obtain documents related to the investigation, including 14 search warrants that had been executed by police.

An attorney for the media organizations argued that releasing the information is “crucial to helping Las Vegas heal.” That’s when an attorney representing the Las Vegas Metro Police dropped this bombshell on the proceedings:

Attorney Nicholas Crosby did not identify new evidence or suspects but said charges might be possible depending on the results of an ongoing investigation.

The claim by Sheriff Joe Lombardo ever since the shooting had been that Paddock acted on his own. So Crosby’s argument apparently took the presiding judge by surprise.

‘Without naming names, there are potential charges against others as a result of the ongoing investigation?’ Clark County District Court Judge Elissa Cadish asked Crosby as he argued to keep police search-warrant records sealed.

‘Yes,’ said Crosby, who represents the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, which Lombardo leads. ‘There are charges being investigated.’

That, of course, directly contradicts the narrative that Paddock was a lone wolf shooter, a reclusive gambler and real estate investor whose motive remains a mystery.

This latest revelation, though, will only serve to throw more gasoline on the slow burning fire of conspiracy theories that has swirled around the investigation.

In case you’ve lost track of all the accounts the Sheriff Joe Lombardo and the Metro PD have given since the shooting…

1) Lombardo initially reported that Paddock began shooting on the crowd below, then shot at Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos when he approached Paddock’s room.

2) Days later, the Sheriff changed the timeline radically. The new story was that Paddock had shot at Campos a full six minutes before shooting at concertgoers. If that were true, it would reflect poorly on hotel security’s response to a report of shots fired.

3) The six-minute gap story was then denied by Mandalay Bay security.

…Mandalay Bay hotel officials disputed the police timeline of the concert shooting. They claim Paddock, a high-stakes gambler and real estate investor, fired into the crowd just 40 seconds after shooting Campos.

The most recent timeline that had been offered by authorities has Paddock shooting 200 rounds into the hallway of the 32nd floor of the hotel, wounding Campos in the leg at 9:59 p.m. — six minutes before he shot into crowds watching Jason Aldean perform.

4) And that was just before Campos disappeared for days, ducking out of Fox News Studios minutes before he was scheduled to give his account of what happened that night. He later turned up on the Ellen Show, of all places, where he backed up the hotel’s story under kid glove treatment by host Ellen Degeneres. And he hasn’t appeared in public since.

Now, in light of yesterday’s arguments, it appears that the investigation is looking at other parties. If you were thinking that Paddock may have bought some of his firearms illegally and the sellers may be the targets of the investigation, that was refuted by subsequent media reports. Paddock appears to have purchased all of his firearms legally and passed the requisite background checks.

So, like so much of what happened back in October, the persons of interest and their relationship to Paddock that the Metro PD’s attorney referred to remain a mystery. And given the deafening silence about the massacre and investigation, unless Judge Cadish rules for the media outlets, we’re not likely to find out more any time soon.

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