Mandalay Bay Security Guard Jesus Campos Nowhere to Be Found, Interviews Canceled at Eleventh Hour

Posted on: October 16, 2017, 08:00h. 

Last updated on: October 16, 2017, 11:32h.

Casino.org Staff Writer Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming.

Jesus Campos, the first person to arrive outside Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock’s Mandalay Bay suite on the 32nd floor on October 1, is staying out of public view and avoiding the media. The man who’s been hailed as a hero in limiting the carnage Paddock caused had planned to give numerous interviews late last week, but vanished just moments before the cameras were to start rolling.

Jesus Campos security Las Vegas shooting
Jesus Campos (left) isn’t talking publicly as of yet about what specifically happened the night of October 1 when he responded to an alarm inside Mandalay Bay and met the deadliest shooter in US modern history. (Image: Twitter)

Mandalay Bay security workers are part of the International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America. The group says it has no idea where Campos might be right now.

Scheduled Appearances Given No Notice

An hour before Campos was to go before reporters on Friday, he met with MGM Resorts International officials. After that meeting concluded, the security officer mysteriously vanished. MGM denies it had anything to do with Campos’ apparent decision to cancel his media appearances.

“Jesus Campos is a hero who has been credited with saving lives and being part of interrupting a shooting rampage,” MGM said in a statement. “The notion that we are in any way preventing him from telling his story is absurd.”

There are many questions surrounding Campos. Little information has surfaced on his life, and he doesn’t appear to have any online social media presence.

Campos’ age isn’t known, nor whether he’s a native of Nevada. It’s unclear if he’s married, has family in the Las Vegas Valley, and how long he’s been employed at MGM.

Reporters have been camped outside his Sunrise Manor home in Las Vegas Township since the shooting. A security company has been hired to protect the house around the clock.

Timing Questions

On Friday, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo slightly revised law enforcement’s chronicle of events to match the account reached by Mandalay Bay. After initially believing that Campos was shot at 9:59 pm local time, a full six minutes before Paddock opened fire out two broken windows on a country music concert below, Lombardo now says Campos actually arrived outside the hotel suite around 10:05.

Paddock had either just begun his shooting, or began moments after firing 200 rounds at Campos through the door, only striking him once in the leg.

Campos’ updated arrival time still doesn’t clarify other vital questions, such as why it took police 12 minutes to arrive on the 32nd floor. If Campos immediately reported an active shooter, and uniformed police were inside Mandalay Bay prior to Campos being shot (as Lombardo and MGM both claim) why did it take so long?

There were reports that the first officers on the scene went to the 31st floor, only to realize that the shooting was in fact taking place one floor above.

The dozen minutes it took for officers to reach the 32nd floor allowed Paddock to fire almost continuously for 10 minutes, killing 58 Route 91 Harvest music festival attendees before taking his own life.

Some law enforcement experts don’t think the minutes mattered per se, as a few officers wouldn’t have been able to enter Paddock’s heavily armored suite quickly anyway. Regardless, Lombardo, who has been the spokesperson all along for the event’s timeline, seemed exasperated by late last week when speaking with media who questioned his changing versions.

“No one is attempting to hide anything,” Lombardo insisted on Friday.

On Sunday night, thousands of locals and visitors walked the Strip to pay tribute to the victims two weeks after the deadliest shooting in modern American history.