Security guard Jesus Campos, the first victim of Stephen Paddock’s mass shooting in Las Vegas several weeks ago, has vanished after going missing ahead of a television interview last week.
There are two conflicting timelines of Campos’ injury, but it is clear that Campos was walking down the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s 32nd floor hallway, when Stephen Paddock spotted him on a camera he’d set up in a room service cart just outside his suite. Paddock reportedly fired nearly 200 rounds through his suite door, wounding Campos in the leg.
It was only moments later that Paddock would break through two of the suites windows and begin raining fire down on concertgoers below, killing more than 50 and injuring nearly 500.
But Campos has been a mysterious subject since being wounded in the first moments of Paddock’s assault. After speaking to hotel and law enforcement officials, Campos was scheduled to appear on local Las Vegas television for an interview, but went missing just moments before he was supposed to be on air.
David Hickey, a spokesman for the Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA), Campos’ union, said he got a text that Campos had been taken to an urgent care facility, UMC Quick Care. But UMC Quick Care says none of their clinics filled out an intake request for a patient by that name, and Campos has been silent since the text — vanishing, basically, into thin air.
Campos could, of course, just be laying low, trying to escape the limelight as he recovers from his wounds and handles issues with his employer, MGM casinos. Hickey did mention that he and Campos had had a meeting with MGM just before Campos agreed to go on air to share his story. But Hickey also says Campos was looking forward to speaking about the incident, and saw scheduled interviews as cathartic.
“Right now I’m just concerned where my member is, and what his condition is. It’s highly unusual,” Hickey told media. “I’m hoping everything is OK with him and I’m sure MGM or the union will let (media) know when we hear something,” he said.
Authorities still have not released a conclusive timeline for Paddock’s shooting, and, according to the latest reports, are still looking for a reason Paddock turned his MGM suite into an arsenal, and attacked the Route 91 music festival taking place just across the street.