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Iraq Vet Who Alerted Police To Vegas Shooter’s Exact Location Raises Major Question About Response Time

"I could just hear the gunshots, continuously."

An Iraq war veteran who alerted police to the location of the Las Vegas shooter’s hotel room is questioning why it took so long for authorities to eliminate the threat.

“And it felt like it took them too long to get over there … to take him out. To get him,” said Chris Bethel, who was in a room at the Mandalay Bay hotel just two floors below where the suspected shooter, Stephen Paddock, carried out the attack.

“And it’s actually eating me up inside,” he added.

Bethel, a resident of Fort Worth, Texas, said he was in Las Vegas for an IT conference.

He was in his hotel room on Sunday night when he first heard the gunshots.

“I could just hear the gunshots, continuously. Just full automatic,” Bethel told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth. “There were explosions going off. It was like a bomb just went off man. And then there were more gunshots.”

Bethel said he called the front desk at the hotel across the street from where he was staying just after 10 p.m. local to report gunshots, but no one answered his calls.

“Seconds are going by, minutes are going by, and the rounds are continuously going,” Bethel said. “Changing weapons, changing calibers, you can hear the difference in the gunshots.”

Bethel said police initially responded to the wrong location but said he was finally able to direct officers to the correct location, telling a 911 operator, “He’s not over there, he’s over here.”

Police indicated the first report of gunfire at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival came at 10:08 p.m. on Sunday, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.

The Daily Mail reported more than 72 minutes passed between the initial call to police and when the SWAT team broke into the room used by Paddock, where they found that he had already shot himself dead.

An officer reported at 10:57 p.m. that police had secured the hallway outside of Paddock’s hotel room on the 32nd floor.

However, there was a 24-minute delay as officers waited for the SWAT team to arrive on the scene. SWAT arrived on the 32nd floor at 11:21 p.m.

“It felt like it took them too long to get over there, to take him out,” Bethel said. “To get him. And it’s actually eating me up inside.”

While police have credited Bethel for helping locate the shooter’s location, he said he believes more lives could have been saved had someone answered his phone calls sooner.

“I feel like I didn’t do enough,” Bethel said. “I feel like I couldn’t get a hold of somebody quick enough to let them know. And it felt like it took them too long to get over there, to take him out.”

https://www.westernjournalism.com/iraq-vet-alerted-police-vegas-shooters-exact-location-raises-major-question-response-time/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=minutemennews&utm_campaign=dailypm&utm_content=libertyalliance