Hotel says Vegas rampage began 40 seconds after guard reported being shot, disputing police claims of delay

The company that runs the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino has disputed the timeline offered by Las Vegas police for the October1 mass shooting at the hotel, suggesting Thursday that very little time had elapsed between when gunman Stephen Paddock shot a hotel security guard and when he started firing on a concert crowd outside.

The police timeline indicates that six minutes elapsed after security guard Jesus Campos was shot outside Paddock’s hotel room door before Paddock fired his first shots at the crowd, but MGM Resorts International managers say they are “now confident” that the timeline is “not accurate.”

“We know that shots were being fired at the festival lot at the same time as, or within 40 seconds after, the time Jesus Campos first reported that shots were fired over the radio,” the company, which owns Mandalay Bay, said in a statement.

One crucial element missing from the hotel’s statement: what time Campos was shot, as opposed to what time he reported being shot.

The statement confirms that Campos, who was wounded in a leg after Paddock fired an estimated 200 bullets through his hotel room door, may have reported a gunman in the hotel sometime before the massacre began at 10.05pm. It continues to raise questions about why it took police at least 12 minutes to reach the gunman’s floor when armed security and Las Vegas police were already in the building.

Pressure has mounted on Mandalay Bay to comment in recent days after Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said Monday that the gunman shot Campos in the leg in the 32nd-floor hallway at 9.59pm, a full six minutes before the massacre began.