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Sheriff Insists 'No Conspiracy' as Las Vegas Shooting Timeline Changes Again

How the carnage unfolded remains in the center of a dispute between MGM and Las Vegas police, and raises questions about liability in the massacre.
Image: Las Vegas police stand guard during the shooting
Las Vegas police stand guard during the shooting outside the festival grounds of the Route 91 Harvest in Las Vegas on Oct. 1.David Becker / Getty Images

The chronology of events in the Las Vegas music festival shooting shifted again Friday when authorities said that a hotel security guard injured by the gunman was struck just as the massacre unfolded, not minutes earlier.

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo's assessment backtracks from when he initially told reporters on Monday that the guard, Jesus Campos, was shot at 9:59 p.m. on the night of the Oct. 1 rampage. That was a change from when Lombardo said previously that Campos was shot after the attack on the concert.

An emotional Lombardo, however, reiterated that the investigation remains fluid and that there is "no conspiracy" to hide certain information from the public.

He said at a news conference Friday that "I still stand by" the time he gave of 9:59 p.m., because that's when Campos was on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, where the shooter Stephen Paddock was staying and plotting the attack. Campos was responding to a jammed fire door in the vicinity of Paddock's room when he was wounded.

Police have said that Paddock, 64, fired more than 200 bullets into the hallway and nearby rooms from his Mandalay Bay hotel suite, before unloading his weapons, starting at 10:05 p.m., out of the suite's windows onto thousands of people at an outdoor concert across the street. The shooting barrage went on for 10 minutes, police said.

Lombardo said Friday that Campos was hit "in close proximity" to 10:05 p.m., not 9:59 p.m.

Related: Hotel Worker Narrowly Escaped Gunman’s Rampage

But after Campos was shot in the leg, Lomdardo added, he was able to radio to security that shots had been fired and also use his cellphone to call for help. Campos survived and is credited with waving off a maintenance worker who happened to be on the 32nd floor when the shooting began.

The tweaked rundown of events came after Mandalay Bay owner MGM Resorts insisted in a statement Thursday that "misinformation" was being provided to the public and that it had other information to dispute the police's timeline. The company did not detail where that information came from.

"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," MGM said.

In addition, MGM said, "Metro officers were together with armed Mandalay Bay security officers in the building when Campos first reported that shots were fired over the radio. These Metro officers and armed Mandalay Bay security officers immediately responded to the 32nd floor."

How exactly the carnage developed remains in the center of the dispute between MGM and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Related: Answer to Question in Las Vegas Massacre — 'Why?' — Elusive So Far

The casino hotel's liability — and when it may have first alerted police to the shooting — is coming under question as potential lawsuits are prepared. The first such lawsuit was filed Wednesday by a shooting survivor against MGM, as well as the concert promoter and the manufacturer of so-called bump stocks, the rapid-fire gun modifications purchased by Paddock.

Paddock was able to kill 58 people and wound nearly 550 others — the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history — before turning his weapons on himself, police said. Discrepancies in the timeline also raise questions about whether police could have stopped Paddock sooner if they had known about the shooting sooner.

The FBI said Friday that they have received 2,000 leads so far, but a motive for the shooting remains unclear.