Mandalay Bay Security Guard Jesus Compos Arrested as 2nd Las Vegas Gunman-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Police have arrested Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Compos as the second gunman in the Las Vegas mass shoting that left 59 people dead and more than 400 wounded in October 2017.
The Truth:
Untrustworthy websites are behind false repots that police arrested security guard Jesus Compos as the second gunman in the Las Vegas mass shooting.
The report appeared on numerous sites, but CNN-InternationalEdition.com, a website that’s in no way affiliated with CNN despite similar names and design features, was the most heavily trafficked report:
Jesus Campos had originally been praised for his apparent heroics on October 1st, as he supposedly rushed to Paddock’s suite, was shot in the upper thigh through the door, and continued to help get people to safety despite his wounds. However, FBI officials involved in the investigation now believe he was an accomplice of Paddock’s, and was involved in the initial shooting as a second gunman from the other broken window in Paddock’s 32nd-floor room.”
Unsupported conspiracy theories about a second gunman circulated almost immediately after the shooting. Police have steadfastly maintained that Stephen Paddock was the sole shooter in the deadly rampage, but police released a revised timeline of events in which Paddock shot Compos before he opened fire on the crowd on October 11. That opened the door for the conspiracy theories to return.
The revised timeline emerged after a Mandalay Bay maintenance worker told police he’d been told call 911 to report an active shooter shortly before Paddock began firing from the hotel room window, the Associated Press reports:
Maintenance worker Stephen Schuck told NBC News that he was checking out a report of a jammed fire door on the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay when he heard gunshots and the hotel security guard who had been shot in the leg peeked out from an alcove and told him to take cover.
“It was kind of relentless so I called over the radio what was going on,” Schuck said. “As soon as the shooting stopped we made our way down the hallway and took cover again and then the shooting started again.”
Gunshots can be heard in the background as Schuck used his radio to report the shooting, telling a dispatcher: “Call the police, someone’s firing a gun up here. Someone’s firing a rifle on the 32nd floor down the hallway.”
Campos also used his radio and possibly a hallway phone to call hotel dispatchers for help, police have said. It was unclear if and when the hotel relayed the reports of shots being fired to police.
That led Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo to announce at a press conference on October 11 that police had revised the chronology of the shooting. However, police have not said there was a second shooter, and Jesus Compos was not arrested.