Las Vegas Shooting Cameras Not Recording But Used To See Swat?

Rosemarie Melanson remembers staring down at the anarchy breaking out at the Road 91 Harvest Festival, seeing her limp torso splayed on the ground, blood coming from a bullet wound to her chest. She recalls floating in the heaven away from frantic screams and the rain of gunfire that instantly obliterated what had been an crawly autumn night on the boondocks with her two daughters.

"The side by side thing I know I was in sky," Melanson told ABC News' "Nightline." "And I saw my dad and my two brothers, and my uncle. And it was so beautiful. It was then beautiful you didn't want to come back. They merely told me, 'It's not your fourth dimension, Rosemarie. You've got to become back.'"

Drapes breaker out of broken windows at the Mandalay Bay resort and casino, Oct. two, 2017, on the Las Vegas Strip following a deadly shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas.

John Locher/AP

Viewpoint from where Stephan Paddock was shooting from his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department

Spotter the full documentary "A Killer on Floor 32" on Hulu right now.

ABC News' "Nightline" is set to air one of the near comprehensive examinations of a U.Southward. mass shooting always compiled, a await back at the Oct. 1, 2017, Las Vegas massacre that killed 58 people and left Melanson and more than 850 others wounded at a country music concert.

A killer on the 32nd floor

Stephen Paddock checked into the Mandalay Bay on Sept. 25, 2017, arriving just before iii p.k. after making the ordinarily lxx-infinitesimal drive in his new Hyundai Tucson SUV from his home in Mesquite, Nevada, most 74 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

The 64-year-old former accountant and realtor who had once amassed a $2.1 million fortune was a regular at the hotel and considered a high roller designated for VIP treatment.

Newly released video shows Stephen Paddock, who shot and killed 58 people in October 2017, in the hallway of the MGM Resorts.

MGM Resorts

"He was a very typical guest," said Steven Martinez, senior vice president of global security for MGM Resorts, which owns the Mandalay Bay. "He was, in our estimation, the lowest risk type individual that would come up onto our property."

Paddock was given top-shelf service, allowing him to ride upward a service elevator to his room with his luggage and accompanied past a bellhop. During his stay at the Mandalay Bay, he made several trips to his dwelling, returning each time with more bags.

In all, he brought in 21 suitcases, authorities said.

He was checked into suite 32-135 on the 32nd flooring, a 1,700-square-foot corner infinite featuring floor-to-ceiling windows offering a wraparound view overlooking the famed Las Vegas Strip. He later reserved an adjoining suite, 32-134, using the proper noun of his girlfriend, regime said.

A plethora of security cameras at the resort practically recorded Paddock's every move outside his hotel suite.

Newly released video shows Stephen Paddock, who shot and killed 58 people in October 2017, at the cheque-in counter at the MGM Resorts.

MGM Resorts

Surveillance footage showed him walking through the hotel's marbled-floor lobby, making a purchase in the gift shop, riding the elevators, sitting at slot machines and video poker machines.

"Everything he did is what y'all'd expect a normal guest to do: Using nutrient and drink, restaurants, having things delivered to his room," Martinez said. "He preferred to play video poker machines. He'd stay at that for hours on end."

Deputy Chief Andrew Walsh of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Section told "Nightline" that Paddock did nix to stand out. He was simply one man in a sea of thousands of hotel guests.

"He just looks like a middle-aged guy with a lot of luggage goin' upwardly to his room," Walsh said.

Deputy Master Andrew Walsh of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Section told "Nightline" that Paddock was just i homo in a sea of thousands of hotel guests.

ABC News

On October. 1, 2017, Paddock ordered room service and records bear witness that between 2:23 p.one thousand. and 9:xl p.m. he opened and closed the doors to both suites several times.

'When She Says Baby'

Jason Aldean, the country music star whose first viii albums accept scored gold or platinum sales figures, had taken the stage around 9:forty that night. The former truck driver was now the closing human activity of the three-day Route 91 Harvest Festival at an open-air venue across the Las Vegas Strip from the Mandalay Bay, and many in the crowd of 22,000 were singing along to his hit "When She Says Babe."

Some days it'southward tough only gettin' up. Throwin' on these boots and makin' that climb, the song goes.

But before Aldean could finish the first verse, he was interrupted by something that sounded at commencement like firecrackers. Inside seconds, the noises grew rapid and before long everyone, including Aldean, recognized the staccato of gunfire.

The fourth dimension was 10:05 p.m.

"Somebody's shooting!" a concertgoer yelled. "Oh my God, I'chiliad so ... scared."

People began to duck and cover. Others dove atop loved ones and petrified strangers, using their bodies as human shields.

In less than a minute, more than than 100 rounds rained downwardly on the oversupply.

Debris is strewn through the scene of a mass shooting at a music festival most the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip, Oct. ii, 2017, in Las Vegas.

John Locher/AP

"People went in multiple directions, merely non knowing where the rounds were coming from," said Walsh, the captain in control of the downtown Las Vegas division the night the rampage was perpetrated on his turf.

Alarm on the 32nd floor

Jesus Campos, a security guard at the Mandalay Bay, was poised to wrap up his shift when he received a call to check out a room alarm on the 32nd floor.

"This was the last phone call of my night," he said. "In my caput, I was home costless after this."

Campos was doing his rounds when he received the call to investigate the alarm i flooring above him. He decided to take the stairwell to the 32nd floor. At that place he discovered something unusual: A metal L-bracket had been screwed to the door and doorjamb preventing him from opening it.

He said he walked upward to the 33rd flooring and took the lift back down.

Stephen Schuck (left), a Mandalay Bay maintenance engineer, Jesus Campos (right), a security baby-sit at the Mandalay Bay, are seen here during an interview with "Nightline."

ABC News

"I didn't know what was going on just just because that'due south non normal," he said of finding the L-bracket. "I had to call our security dispatch."

His phone call, he said, was transferred to maintenance engineering.

When he entered the 32nd-floor hallway, Campos, who was unarmed, heard what sounded like a drill coming from behind the doors at the far cease of the hall within suite 32-135.

Every bit he stepped in the direction of the strange noise, gunfire erupted. Someone barricaded in the high-roller suite somehow saw him coming and opened fire through the door.

People tend to the wounded outside the festival grounds, Oct. 1, 2017, in Las Vegas.

David Becker/Getty Images

"I was struck and I went to get encompass," Campos said. "I had to take a moment to realize what was going on. I went to lift upward my pant leg and I saw the blood coming down."

Finding cover in an alcove, Campos radioed for assistance at x:06 p.m.

"Hey, there'south shots fired in 32-135," he reported.

The original alarm telephone call turned out to be a nanny who had left her room door ajar. Had that not occurred, Campos would not take stumbled upon the massacre at the precise moment information technology was commencing.

He inadvertently became a hero by pinpointing the exact location of the shooter.

At ten:08 p.m., Stephen Schuck, a Mandalay Bay maintenance engineer, got off an elevator on the 32nd flooring. He had been relayed Campos' report that an 50-bracket was blocking an exit door and went to check it out.

"I had no idea what was going on at the time," Schuck told "Nightline."

When he exited the elevator, Schuck heard what sounded like a "jackhammer."

"I noticed him," Campos said of Schuck. "I said, 'Become cover. It's not safety.' At that moment in time, there were more rounds being dispersed."

Schuck pigeon for cover equally bullets whizzed down the hallway toward him. He said he radioed for help.

"I thought if I don't come out of the hallway alive, I wanted to communicate for Metro [police] and first responders to get up there because this is where the shooter is," Schuck said.

'Information technology's an agile shooter'

Panicked concertgoers flooded the 911 dispatch middle with calls.

"There are numerous reports coming in. Nosotros have 33 calls holding," a 911 dispatcher said over an emergency channel, according to a recording of radio transmissions. "It's an agile shooter."

A woman sits on a curb at the scene of a shooting outside of a music festival along the Las Vegas Strip, Oct. ii, 2017, in Las Vegas.

AP, FILE

After being temporarily distracted by Campos and and then Schuck, the gunman in suite 32-135 returned to his perch in the frame of a shattered window of the suite and allow loose another barrage of gunfire on the concertgoers below.

Officeholder Brady Melt of the Metropolitan Police force Department was 1 of the starting time officers to get in on the scene. Video from another officer's bodycam defenseless the moments Cook and his colleagues came under fire and took encompass behind their vehicles.

"I'm downwards! I got shot!" Melt is heard on another officer's bodycam screaming.

The 911 dispatchers were receiving unconfirmed reports of shooters in multiple hotels, including the Tropicana Las Vegas Casino Hotel Resort, 1 of the oldest hotels in the city, where scenes from "The Godfather" and Elvis Presley'southward "Viva Las Vegas" were filmed.

"What sticks with me is that fearfulness, that pain in my stomach that this was going to just be the kickoff role of a multifaceted attack," Walsh said.

In the confusion, armed security guards at the Mandalay Bay initially thought the gunfire was coming from outside and exited the hotel in search of the shooter.

Afterwards 12 surgeries, Rosemarie Melanson was sent home to recover half-dozen days before the one twelvemonth ceremony of the Las Vegas attack.

ABC News

Meanwhile, the victims remained sitting ducks as the ground effectually them thudded with bullets.

Rosemarie Melanson had attended the concert with her adult daughters, Stephanie and Paige, the co-founders of a dance studio who had given their mom a ticket to the music festival every bit a Female parent'south Solar day present. The sisters were faced with a daunting conclusion: Stay with their gravely wounded mother and possibly die, or run for their lives.

Stephanie and Paige Melanson attended the concert with their mother, Rosemarie Melanson, who was gravely wounded in the Oct. i, 2017, Las Vegas attack.

ABC News

"A retired firefighter came over and he told us we had to go," said Paige Melanson, who was wounded in the arm. "He said that if we wanted to live that we needed to get. I looked into his eyes and he said, 'Yous need to go.' So I did."

When their mother was shot during the Las Vegas massacre, Paige Melanson told "Nightline," that "a retired firefighter came over and he told" her and her sister Stephanie "that we accept to go."

Shift modify

Officeholder Richard Cole and his rookie trainee Officer Brandon Engstrom, on only his second 24-hour interval on the job, had just reported for duty.

"Information technology was our sergeant who had the radio on. Shots came out over the radio," Engstrom told "Nightline." "And so immediately he yells at us to go to our cars, get prepare and go to the concert venue."

Officer Brandon Engstrom is seen hither during an interview with "Nightline."

ABC News

As Engstrom and Cole raced to the scene, a colleague radioed a foreboding alarm: "Be aware, it is automatic burn, fully automatic fire from an elevated position. Take cover."

Every fourth dimension an officeholder keyed a radio mic, the sound of rapid gunfire could be heard, the officers said.

As soon as Engstrom and Cole arrived at the scene, a man rushed up to them property his wounded wife.

Officeholder Richard Cole was 1 of the responding officers on the scene of the Oct. 1, 2017, Las Vegas shooting.

ABC News

"He came over to our automobile and he's carrying his wife, Jovanna, in his arms and he says, 'Aid me, I'm a police force officer,'" Cole said.

Frank Calzadillas, an officer for the Common salt River Police force Department in Arizona, had traveled to Vegas with his wife, Jovanna, to attend the concert. During the massacre, Jovanna was shot in the caput and Cole and Engstrom conspicuously understood she wouldn't survive unless they got her to a hospital immediately.

The officers put the couple in the back seat of their patrol vehicle and sped to University Medical Center in Las Vegas.

Frank Calzadillas was doing breast compressions on his wife, pleading with her to stay alive.

Cole said that every bit they raced to the hospital, they heard of Cook, who was too on his 2nd day of piece of work, being shot.

"I recollect within the first 30 seconds to a minute of u.s. driving to the infirmary, we heard that an officeholder had been shot and Brandon [Engstrom] realized that was somebody he went to the academy with," he said. "And I recall him saying, 'My buddy only got shot.'"

Police bodycam video showed the officers pulling upwards to the crowded emergency room and carrying Jovanna Calzadillas inside, asking doctors and nurses, "Where do you desire her?"

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers Richard Cole and Brandon Engstrom's harrowing body cam footage shows what happened when they responded to the Oct. ane, 2017, massacre.

"At that bespeak ... she was bleeding everywhere, like her entire body was covered in blood," Cole said.

Afterwards laying the wounded woman on a gurney, Cole and Engstrom decided what to do next.

Police run at the scene of a shooting near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip, Oct. 1, 2017, in Las Vegas.

John Locher/AP

"I'm washing my hands and I said something to the issue, 'It'southward an effing terrorist attack. Just get everybody here.' I then ... looked at Brandon and he said, 'What are we doing?'" Cole recalled. "I said, 'Let'southward go. Nosotros've got to go dorsum.'"

Possible booby trap

One time government were aware of the shooter'southward location at the Mandalay Bay, police conducted a full sweep of the hotel.

"Show me your hands! Show me your easily!" 1 officeholder was heard in bodycam footage yelling equally he and his well-armed squad fanned out in the casino, clearing gamblers from row after row of flashing and ringing slot machines.

Police SWAT teams were going floor to floor in the gilded 43-story tower, bursting into rooms with guns fatigued and rousting guests.

SWAT found a room-service cart parked outside of suite 32-134 with wires coming out of it.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Section

"There is an active shooter in the hotel, OK. Stay locked in your room. Thanks," an officer is heard in a bodycam video telling a startled invitee still in bed.

When SWAT teams made it to the 32nd floor, they were confronted by an eerie silence and a room-service cart parked outside of suite 32-134 with wires coming out of information technology.

"What is that cart that's in the hallway?" one of the officers asked.

Some other officer replied, "I don't know. That'south why you're not going any further."

"They get close enough to that room, there'south wires, there'southward cameras. What are they walking into? Is that an IED? Is there more than i person? How many people are at that place? Nosotros had nothing," said Deputy Chief Walsh.

On closer inspection, the officers saw the room-service cart was rigged with a small surveillance photographic camera hidden nether a plate and pointed downward the hallway at them.

They dismantled the overhead lights to give them encompass and placed a bomb strip to the door of the suite.

Constabulary seized 24 guns from Paddock'due south suite, including AR-15 and AR-x assault rifles with armor-piercing bullets.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Constabulary Department

"Stand by for alienation!" i of them yelled, prompting others to cover their ears.

"Breach! Breach! Breach!" the orders came followed by an explosion.

When they entered the room, they establish Paddock dead from a cocky-inflicted gunshot wound.

Police seized 24 guns from Paddock's suite, including AR-15 and AR-10 assail rifles with armor-piercing bullets.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department

The suite was littered with more than 1,000 spent gun shell casings and an arsenal of weapons, some lying on the beds and on the floor, others stacked in a bathtub. A small surveillance photographic camera had been fitted over the peephole of the suite's entrance door.

The officers blasted open the door to the adjoining suite, the one Paddock had booked nether his girlfriend's name days earlier, and found more weapons there.

In full, police seized 24 guns, including AR-fifteen and AR-10 set on rifles with armor-piercing bullets. Some of the weapons had been altered with bump-stocks, devices to make them simulate automobile guns.

Police likewise found over five,000 unused rounds of armament.

Police constitute over 5,000 unused rounds of armament inside Paddock's suite.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police force Department

As word spread through the hotel that the gunman was expressionless, i officeholder addressed a crowd of hotel guests sheltering in identify.

"We have no control over the actions of evil people, but we're here now," the officeholder said.

The room broke into loud applause.

'An human activity of terrorism'

Since the shooting, the Mandalay Bay has instituted new security measures, including using M-9 units to comport random checks of luggage, Martinez said.

Deputy Chief Walsh said the hotel has also additional its scrutiny of guests, including evaluating who tin check into rooms overlooking outdoor venues both on the Las Vegas Strip and downtown.

"They've been dandy partners for us," he said of the casino industry.

But not everyone agrees.

Mandalay Bay and MGM officials take argued in courtroom filings that the mass shooting was clearly an human action of terrorism and considering of that, they should not be held legally responsible.

A broken window is seen at The Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino following a mass shooting at the Route 91 Festival in Las Vegas, Oct. 2, 2017.

Mike Blake/Reuters

The company has even taken the controversial stride of suing more than one,000 victims of the attack to escape financial liability. Citing a law passed afterwards the Sept. eleven, 2001, terrorist attacks, the company argues it is not financially responsible because the security company it hired for the concert was federally certified against terrorist attacks.

Responding to a backfire from the lawsuit, MGM lawyers contend it is simply a legal maneuver and not meant to insult those injured or killed.

"This is a small metropolis and it'due south a big family," Bowling told "Nightline." "The community depends on Mandalay Bay. Nosotros're a customs serving a community. And and then, this is our focus: Nosotros can mourn what'south going on, but we tin piece of work together to look to the future, and that there's hope."

The lawsuit is currently suspended while MGM and the survivors attempt to resolve their differences in arbitration.

Asked how Paddock could sneak that many weapons into the hotel, Chuck Bowling, president and chief operating officer for the Mandalay Bay, said he was treated as whatever other invitee.

"My first response to that is there are thousands of people walking through the forepart door, our back door, from the parking garage with luggage. We greet and welcome them. That'southward our first responsibility," Bowling told "Nightline."

"Once I saw the arsenal that was up in that location ... information technology'southward sickening," he said.

'Like sunshine to a dark mean solar day'

More than a year since the mass murder, investigators, survivors and the families of those slaughtered are left with one gnawing question above all others: What possessed a middle-aged retired auditor to commit the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history?

"Other places that have had mass casualty incidents ... the shooters ... accept left behind manifestos. In this case, nosotros just don't take that," Deputy Chief Walsh said.

The bullet that hit Rosemarie Melanson in the upper right chest, traveled sideways through her body, severing her esophagus, breaking several ribs, and tearing through her intestine, her liver and spleen. Subsequently 12 surgeries and months spent in and out of the infirmary, she was finally sent home to recover six days before the 1-year ceremony of the assail.

Rosemarie Melanson (left), seen hither with her married man Steve Melanson, was gravely wounded in the Oct. ane, 2017, Las Vegas shooting.

ABC News

"I'm stronger than I thought I was," she said.

The U.South. Justice Department has allocated $17 million to assist those affected by the shooting.

Stephen Schuck, the Mandalay Bay maintenance engineer, said the shooting left him with a new appreciation for life.

"I feel like I got a second chance that 58 people didn't, and I demand to live a skilful life to accolade them," Schuck said.

On the forenoon after the mass shooting, officers Cole and Engstrom returned to University Medical Center to check on Officeholder Brady Cook and Jovanna Calzadillas, the critically wounded Arizona woman they collection to the hospital and whose blood stained their shirts.

"I thought for sure that she probably didn't go far," said Cole.

A nurse, however, directed them to the intensive care unit of measurement, where the adult female was existence treated. Calzadillas survived and is still undergoing rehabilitation today.

"They saved my life," Jovanna Calzadillas told "Nightline" of Cole and Engstrom.

Her hubby, Frank, added: "There aren't whatever words to say how grateful we are for them or how much we appreciate everything they did. Nosotros just know there's nil but love for those ii guys."

Engstrom, now more a yr on the job, said hearing of Jovanna'southward survival was the well-nigh heartening news he and Cole received on what will likely exist the near horrific solar day in both their law enforcement careers.

"Going to the hospital and learning that she's actually notwithstanding alive," Engstrom said, "was kind of similar sunshine to a night solar day."

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/anatomy-las-vegas-mass-shooting-deadliest-modern-us/story?id=59797324

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